China’s New Consumption Trends 2026: How Emotional Value, Quality Living, and Smart Tech Are Rewriting Growth
- See Qian
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
The 2026 macro shift: a market rebuilt around purpose, speed, and new boundaries
The report frames today’s new consumption landscape as the intersection of three forces that are reshaping market logic:
Market boundary expansion (“going global”) as brands look beyond domestic incremental growth for their next curve.
A “self-centred” consumer awakening, where purchase decisions start from the “self” rather than external expectations, paying for emotional repair and for identity signalling.
A supply-side “value + speed” revolution, where competition shifts from scale to faster, smarter value creation, with intelligent technology becoming a core experience engine.
2026 is not about one single “super trend”. It is about a new operating system: consumers want less friction, more personal relevance, and clearer proof, while brands need to respond faster with sharper propositions.
The new consumer mindset: “buying meaning” is now mainstream
Source: iiMedia Research
A standout insight is that buying is increasingly about meaning, not just function. Consumers look for emotional reassurance, identity fit, and a sense of being understood, then use quality cues and credible detail to validate the choice.
At the same time, decision-making is situational: the same person can be ruthlessly practical in one moment and willing to pay for emotional value in another. Brands that win make it easy to switch modes, clear value, clear proof, and clear story.
This “switching behaviour” matters because it kills lazy positioning. You cannot assume your audience is consistently price-driven or consistently premium-driven. You must design for the scene.
From mass market to micro-tribes: communities are the new demand engine
Another defining change is market fragmentation. The report notes that the traditional “unified mass market” is dissolving, and vertical communities have become the growth soil for new brands,shifting the game from “winning by scale” to “winning by circles”.
The strategic implication is simple: brands don’t always need broad awareness first. They can win with “small but beautiful” growth by building credibility inside one vertical community and expanding outward from there.
Where the growth pools are: three “hot tracks” defining new consumption
The report organises 2025’s new consumption landscape into three core tracks that continue to shape 2026: the emotional economy, quality living, and smart technology.
The emotional economy: paying for comfort, identity, and connection
Source: iiMedia Research
The emotional economy is defined as a shift from functional value to emotional value, where consumers pay for products that deliver psychological comfort, recognition, and self-identity.
Crucially, this is not “soft” demand—it is large and measurable. The report estimates China’s emotional economy reached RMB 2.31 trillion in 2024 and forecasts growth to RMB 4.62 trillion by 2029.
Within this track, categories like pet economy and trend toys/IP goods act as emotional infrastructure:
In pet supplies, consumers still put “hard proof” first: quality, safety and durability outrank price, signalling that emotional attachment does not cancel rational standards.
Discovery is multi-touch: consumers split attention across e-commerce, content recommendations and short video, which means persuasion needs to travel across multiple formats and proof points.
For outdoor economy, “mountain-style living” (山系生活) was framed as social healing, nature experiences that offer emotional reset and easy, low-pressure companionship. It defines the outdoor economy as a cross-sector system centred on outdoor (or semi-natural) spaces, spanning consumption, services, manufacturing, tourism, and sport. Two high-growth pockets stand out: snow-and-ice equipment is forecast at RMB 84.66 billion in 2025 and RMB 194.66 billion by 2030; camping’s core market reaches RMB 248.32 billion in 2025, unlocking RMB 1,440.28 billion across adjacent sectors.
A vivid sub-signal is “goods economy”: the report notes RMB 202.1 billion in 2025 (+19.7% year-on-year), driven by IP spending and fandom-led collection behaviour.
What it means: in the emotional economy, brand strength comes from story + proof. The story creates resonance; the proof (quality, safety, durability, authenticity) protects conversion and repeat.
Quality living: rational upgrading, not reckless premiumisation
“Quality living” in the report is not a luxury-only idea. It is framed as a rational pursuit of a better life—balancing functional and spiritual needs, health and sustainability, and value-for-money.
It breaks into five types: health quality, home quality, personal/social quality, sustainable quality, and travel/leisure quality.
This is where many “steady growth” opportunities sit, including:
Silver economy: Demand is shifting from “basic elderly care” to “enjoying later life”, with experience, autonomy, and dignity rising in importance, pushing brands toward better age-friendly design and specialised services.
The report defines the silver economy as a multi-sector system serving the 60+ population across healthcare, care services, social entertainment, travel/leisure, retail consumption, and insurance/finance.
Demographics underpin the urgency: the elderly dependency ratio reaches 22.8% in 2024, with the 65+ population at around RMB 220.23 million in the report’s data series. The elderly care industry is estimated at RMB 16.1 trillion in 2025 and forecast to reach RMB 21.1 trillion by 2027.
Health consumption: spending is moving from “after you get ill” to “before you get ill”. Preventive, proactive management via monitoring, nutrition, exercise, chronic management and everyday wellness, increasingly supported by smart devices and internet healthcare.
Quality home living: the report argues the shift is from standardised products to “precision customisation”, capturing individual needs, integrating systems, and using digital tools to translate design into production. Quality now shows up as better fit and space-efficiency, coherent aesthetic and texture, and smart-home usability with scenario linkage and compatibility.
Culture and entertainment: After-pandemic behaviour is normalising around “experience + spiritual investment”. The report shows per-capita spending on education/culture/entertainment reached RMB 3,189 in 2024, up 9.8% year-on-year.
What it means: quality living winners don’t just raise prices. They reduce anxiety (safety, suitability, transparency), add real usability, and communicate benefits in a way that feels practical and respectful.
Smart tech: intelligence becoming a daily-life utility
Source: iiMedia Research
The report positions smart technology as a core track—spanning AI terminals, service robots, digital humans, and intelligent connected vehicles—because intelligence is moving from a “feature” to a “daily scenario” that upgrades convenience and experience.
The smart-tech track is driven by the convergence of AI, big data, IoT, and cloud computing, integrating algorithms, computing hardware, and real-world applications so that devices and systems can sense, decide, execute, and learn autonomously. The report ties this to industrial capability: industrial value-added rises from RMB 4.39 trillion in 2001 to RMB 40.54 trillion in 2024. In practice, AI terminals, service robots and digital humans are the core interfaces—turning connected devices into intelligent assistants, embedding scenario-based automation into retail/hospitality/care, and providing always-on interactive service avatars.
For brands, the key is not tech-for-tech’s sake. It is tech that reduces friction, personalises service, and makes outcomes feel more certain—especially in health, home, and mobility contexts.
What to watch next in 2026: five emerging shifts
The report’s outlook highlights five forward trends:
Lower-tier markets shifting from “population dividend” to “value dividend”—consumers increasingly want brand, design, technology, and service, not just low price.
“AI+” service integration enabling all-scenario personalised “life manager” experiences.
Faster virtual–real integration, blurring digital assets and physical consumption.
Sustainable consumption becoming end-to-end action, not just messaging.
Ecosystem-style globalisation, building value co-existence across markets.
Practical playbook: how brands should respond
To compete in China’s 2026 new consumption cycle:
Design for scenes. Build messaging that works for both extreme-practical moments and emotional premium moments.
Use communities as distribution. Win trust with creator proof, peer endorsement, and consistent participation.
Make proof legible. Standardise claims language and show safety/quality evidence in authoritative, easy-to-scan formats.
Treat ageing, preventive health and accessibility as growth infrastructure—build respectful, safe, service-ready propositions. Pair this with real sustainability loops—transparent sourcing and measurable, closed-loop action.
If you’d like to discuss what these trends mean for your category or brand strategy, feel free to reach out to us.
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