Taking a sharp turn after reaching the peak, Chinese consumption trends in 2022 was like riding a roller coaster.
The first half of the year saw a significant investment in online beauty and beverages, trendy games, offline tea shops, noodle shops, and baking. As the year progressed, many well-known venture capital firms focused primarily on metaverse and hard & core technology, and the few who managed to attract investment were top players that fought hard for investment. “We don’t pay much attention to new consumption, except for food technology.” An investor said bluntly.
The Kaipineapple Finance team consulted with several investors and analysts to summarize the trends in consumption investment over the past six months. They combined this information with multiple forecast reports and concluded that eight new consumption tracks to usher in new opportunities by 2022.
Category 1: Storytelling of Emerging Categories
No.1 Plant-Based Products
Environmentalists, vegetarians, and animal welfare activists around the globe are replacing animal meat with plant-based alternatives. Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng once analyzed to Kaipineapple Finance that, relying on consumption upgrades and the rigid needs of people promoting a healthy lifestyle, in China, plant-based meat will be one of the industries that will develop rapidly in the next two to three years.
No.2 Outdoor Sports Equipment
A sports investor noted that outdoor sports own the opportunity for storytelling. Opportunities abound as the industry is still in its infancy, and vertical brands are not readily available.
The market prospect of outdoor sports-related equipment is also optimistic. “Alibaba 2021 “November” Holiday Consumer Travel Trend Report” shows that in September, the sales of camping products on Tmall increased by more than 50% year on year, and the bookings of Fliggy tents and camping increased by more than 1,400% month-on-month.
No.3 Makeup in the Vertical Segmentation
The market value of Wanmeiriji has dropped drastically, and Huaxizi has suffered sluggish growth. After two years of massive expansion, the beauty track might have reached a bottleneck.
However, in 2021, there will be many phenomenal brands in the vertical segmented beauty market, such as Blank me for base makeup and Into you for lip makeup. Similarly, the capital market has turned its attention to emerging beauty categories, such as beauty contact lenses and eyelashes.
The recently popular wearable fingernails (different from traditional manicures, manicures that can be worn and removed at any time) are also one of the most popular items for consumer investors at the beginning of the new year.
The Second Category: Micro-innovation in the Stock Market
No.4 Functional Snacks
Health and wellness have the rigid demand among the current young consumer groups, and it is also one of the major trends in global food consumption in 2022. Food consumption today is highly regulated: whoever cooks the healthiest and tastiest food will win consumers.
The CBNData report shows that the health care products purchased by consumers from the Tmall International platform show a trend of “snack-like” without the feeling of taking medicine. Among them, the post-90s and post-95s prefer new forms of health care products such as comprehensive nutritional meal packs and functional snacks.
Chen momo, the Senior Consumer Investor, stated that products that cater to the needs of women’s health, gut health, sleep health, mental health, etc., as well as functional foods that get positive feedback on their efficacy and are more snack-oriented and scene-oriented, will be favoured by consumers.
No. 5 Energy Drink
China’s soft drink market from 2014 to 2019 is 5.9%. Among them, packaged drinking water, functional beverages, and coffee have grown rapidly.
Some investors revealed that the new opportunities for soft drink brands consist of replacing and updating existing functional beverages like energy drinks and herbal teas, and also combining various beverage forms like “coffee + tea” and “bubble + coffee/tea/juice” Wait.
Among them, energy drinks are considered to be one of the tracks with the largest growth space in the food and beverage sector in 2022.
No. 6 Functional Skincare
Since the second half of 2021, regulatory policies related to the cosmetics industry have been intensively adjusted.
A tightening of regulations is one aspect. For example, at the end of 2021, the State Food and Drug Administration issued a document to prohibit “adding 377 ingredients with whitening effect to ordinary cosmetics; requiring the deletion of “medical cold compress, cold compress gel” and other commonly used product names for medical and beauty masks; “Evaluation of Cosmetics Efficacy Claims” Specifications are officially implemented.
The regularization of raw materials is the other side of the coin. For example, since the promulgation of the “Regulations on the Administration of Registration and Filing of New Cosmetic Raw Materials”, six new cosmetic raw materials, including N-acetylneuraminic acid (bird’s nest acid), lauroyl alanine (supramolecular amino acid), and snow lotus culture, have been put on record. It will bring new opportunities for cosmetic research and development.
The 3rd Category: Re-expansion of Popular Tracks
No. 7 Sugar-free Food
According to the Zhiyan Consulting report, the market size of sugar-free beverages has grown from RMB1.66 billion in 2014 to RMB11.78 billion in 2020; CBNData report shows that nearly 70% of new tea drink consumers choose to reduce sugar content, and the top ingredient is 0 card sugar.
“Sugar-free” can still be imagined in several fields apart from beverage products. Chen Momo predicts that sugar-free might get used more often in food products outside of beverages. “Baking, ice cream, and chocolate are the most common examples.” These categories are originally very high in sugar, but they are not stapled foods linked to dietary habits, and there is a complete opportunity to correct them.”
No. 8 Offline Coffee
In 2021, the capital will flock to offline coffee crazily. Investors include not only leading VCs but also Internet CVC institutions. In the second half of the year, new consumer players are expected to enter the fray. ByteDance and Meituan Longzhu successively raised Manner, Tencent successively deployed Tims and algebra; Yuanqi Forest bet on Never Coffee and M Stand, and HEYTEA invested heavily in Seesaw.
The founder of Shanghai Bogai Consulting, Gao Jianfeng, found that offline coffee has a market size of RMB100 billion, Shanghai Bogai Consulting founder Gao Jianfeng estimated that offline coffee is a 100 billion yuan industry, while most chain coffee stores are located in first-tier cities, the proportion of coffee consumption is not high in some second-tier and third-tier cities, and the penetration of standardized coffee rates can also be increased.
This article is compiled from the Kaipineapple Finance team’s latest report. Read more, the Picture courtesy: the source article, China’s e-commerce sites or own photography.