THE HAPPY SINGLES GUIDE
DEMOGRAPHICS
Population: There are 240 million single people in China and 45.9% of them actively choose the single life, indicating that the market for this group is sustainable. Single people play a role in the market that’s often called the single economy or the one-person economy. Although the proportion of singles in China is lower than in developed countries, the country’s large population base means that it’s still a huge market.
Geographical distribution: 29.7% of single young people live in first-tier cities and 26.4% are in new first-tier cities. Five provinces – Guangdong, Henan, Sichuan, Shandong and Jiangsu – all have more than 10 million single people. Guangdong province has 25.77 million single people, almost twice as many as Henan province, which ranks second. It’s interesting that single women in China are more concentrated in urban areas while single men are more concentrated in less developed areas.
Income distribution: The proportion of single people with monthly income of 10,000 – 20,000 yuan is relatively high. As city tier decreases, the proportion of singles with monthly income between 3,000 and 6,000 yuan increases. As a whole, the average monthly income of single people born between 1985 and 1995 (aged 27-37) is 6,000 to 8,000 yuan. 32% of single women earn 6,000 to 10,000 yuan a month while the most common monthly wage for single men is 10,000 to 20,000 yuan. 28% of single men fit into this income bracket.
Because young singles have no immediate demands for apartment purchases and other high cost items, they have relatively high disposable monthly income and high consumption potential. Having said that, about 40% of young singles live paycheck to paycheck. The proportion of those living paycheck to paycheck rises as city level and monthly income declines and reaches 76% in fourth and fifth tier cities.
Occupation distribution: 25% of single men and 16% of single women are in technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) related fields. This sector has the highest concentration of single people. This is followed by the auto, production and manufacturing industries, where 20% of the workforce is single men. The percentage of single women working in real estate is also relatively high at 10%.
Average length of single life: 73.01% of single people have been single for more than three years with 43.6% staying single for more than three years. Single people in China are staying single for longer which is expanding this consumer group and growing the single economy.
CONSUMPTION PREFERENCES
Single demand preferences: The biggest demand and pain point for single people revolves around the need for individual sizes, capacities or portions for goods and services. Those living alone have made nicely designed, small, multi-functional home appliances a huge hit. On Tmall, single serve items like one-kilogram rice bags and small bottles of wine have increased by up to 30% year-on-year. During the 618 shopping festival, sales of small, self-heating hot pots increased by 80% year-on-year and sales of instant rice increased by 800% year-on-year.
Spending preferences: Single people spend 20% to 60% of their monthly income. Single people have bigger budgets for daily expenses than couples and families who are eager to save and often under pressure to buy a home.
Consumption preferences: Single people are more willing to spend money on non-essential needs or on entertainment, and spend more than average on a variety of items. While the daily consumption of couples focuses on daily necessities, food and beverages, single people spent the most on dining which took up 25.9% of their total month spending in 2021. Their spending on leisure and entertainment is 13.4%, much higher than that of non-single people (5.7%), and the proportion of spending on clothing and beauty is 11.1%, which is also higher than that of non-single people.
Single people are more likely to spend socially for emotional needs, for self-improvement and to please themselves. 22% of single people buy books to read in their spare time and a whopping 18% spend money to learn new skills. To satisfy their emotional and caring needs, they’re more likely to have pets and spending on pets can take up a significant portion of their spending. Single people make up 32.5% of pet owners.
POPULAR CATEGORIES FOR HAPPY SINGLES
Catering: takeout (45.7%), fast food/quick prep food (42.7%), raw ingredients (38.5%), semi-prepared meals (34.4%).
Beauty and skin care:
Women: skincare products (72.8%), bath products (58.3%), hair care products (55.6%), makeup (47.7%), oral care products (44.4%).
Men: bath products (66.2%), hair care products (55.8%), oral care (44.2%), skincare products (42.9%), perfume (26.6%)
Home:
Small household appliances: smart home products, personal care appliances.
WHY DO YOU NEED CHINESE MARKETING RESEARCH AND STRATEGY?
It’s never easy to enter a new market, especially when it requires understanding the sentiment of a new group of consumers and their communication channels. By working with our agency, we offer you the following benefits:
- Helps you understand China’s Happy Singles
- Helps you understand your competitors targeting China’s happy singles
- Helps you to determine the positioning of your products and plan digital marketing and ecommerce strategies
- Helps you align your offerings more accurately with the expectations of Chinese customers
WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING
OUR RESEARCH AND STRATEGY METHODOLOGY
Our China marketing research and strategy team gives you a detailed framework that will allow you to start and grow your business in mainland China. Our methodology mix is tailored for each project. In order to identify target consumers and understand their demands and develop marketing strategy for your product in China, Alarice team will develop tailor-made proposal for your project and discuss each phase methodology with your team to guarantee results. You can find more information about or methodology approaches here.
MARKET RESEARCH
- Online Market Research
- Industry performance research
- Market sizing
- Competitors Benchmarking
- Mystery Shopping
- Case Study
BRAND AUDIT
- Brand SMM Audit
- E-commerce Audit
- SWOT Analysis
- Perceived USPs
- Value Perceived
CONSUMER RESEARCH
- Online Survey
- Consumer Panel
- Focus Groups
- In-depth interviews
- Offline intercepts
- Semantics ( usage differentiation )
- Social listening
- Ethnographic research
- Sentiment Analysis
- Sensory Analysis
- Consumer Journey Tracking
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
- Brand Positioning review
- Brand pricing strategy review
- Market channels strategy
- Content strategy
- SMM strategy
- KOL/Influencer strategy
- Roadmap timeline budget
- Seasonal events / campaigns
- Conversion funnel strategy
YOUR CHINA MARKETING TEAM
We have an unmatched ecosystem of services to help clients worldwide build their brand in China from 0 and enhance performance for those already in the market:
- Chinese Social Media Account Set Up. Chinese social media account set up and verification are steps which seem easy to handle. However, for newcomers, it can be a challenging process, especially when interfaces are only in Chinese or the English version is very different. Our team will help you with the list of documents needed, account options and the rest of the verification process. We also do account migration, account mergers, integration and more.
- Digital Brand Audit. We can do a full spectrum analysis of your digital marketing matrix and point out what’s effective, what’s hitting the mark, what’s missing and what needs urgent attention.
- Chinese Social Media Marketing. With our understanding of China’s unique social media landscape, we’ll help to select the most suitable platforms for your services and products and turn them into effective marketing channels with creative content. Apart from China’s top social networks, WeChat and Weibo, we also work with niche Chinese social media platforms suitable for different industries.
- KOL Marketing and Campaigns. Working with bloggers in China is very different from in most Western countries. In order to succeed in China, key opinion leader (KOL) marketing is not an option, it’s a necessity.
- Chinese Brand and Product Naming. Choosing the right brand name for the China market is one of the most sensitive aspects of an entrance strategy. We help with China brand name and slogan development.
- Digital Online PR . We help with China PR strategy to get attention from users and visibility in the market.
As each project is unique, we also organize free consultations to discuss your projects and suggest solutions. Contact us and we’ll help you turn your business goals into real outcomes
FAQ
Single economy highlights single demand, not only single demand content (focus on the quality of life, advocating high consumption life and me-time), but also points to the demand of “individual size”for products and services.
Happy single young people do not have the pressure of retirement and children’s education, they have stronger purchasing power and consumption desire. Their consumer needs mainly focus on convenience, companionship, self-development, enjoyment of life and other aspects, which also brings new opportunities for brands to branding and marketing.
Happy single young people do not have the pressure of retirement and children’s education, they have stronger purchasing power and consumption desire. Their consumer needs mainly focus on convenience, companionship, self-development, enjoyment of life and other aspects, which also brings new development direction for brands. We can help to do consumer and market research to create industry strategies, develop content and more.
For relevant brands, this is an opportunity market that cannot be missed. If you want to enter the Chinese elderly market from scratch, we provide local branding services, including brand and product naming, logo design,product guidelines and more.
Although singles’ Day started as a celebration for singles, it has now become an online shopping festival, and singles have also contributed a lot to the Double 11, with combined sales on the two e-commerce giants Tmall and JD.com topping 889.4 billion yuan on the day.
We can help you organize marketing campaigns at shopping festivals like Singles Day to help your brand gain Chinese festivals opportunities.Brands can cooperate with a wide range of influencers within the pet industry and on multiple platforms . We can dig deep into our extensive network of Chinese social media KOLs/influencers and help your business to establish goal-specific social marketing campaigns and fruitful collaborations.
Single people are more likely to spend socially for emotional needs, and more likely to spend for self-improvement and to please themselves. Brands can start from these pain points to gain the favor of single consumers, our marketing strategy team can provide your brand with a professional marketing strategy for happy singles based on research data and industry insights.
During the epidemic , single people spend a lot of time on the Internet to meet their needs for leisure, social contact and shopping,as they do not need to share their time with their families. Among them, short video platforms (Douyin , Kuaishou ) have become one of the main ways for singles to entertain. Our video marketing service helps you to localize messages, strengthen your brand image and reach out to your target happy single consumer through Chinese short video marketing.