China’s ‘i-can’ generation to drive economic growth locally, globally

KUALA LUMPUR: Chinese consumer ‘i-can’ generation will transform China into a more digital and consumer-driven economy and their massive spending power would be the primary engine, not just as the backbone of China’s sustainable growth, but that of global economic stability.

In a statement yesterday, HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd said in the 1950s and 1960s, the world economy was transformed by the emergence of the American consumer, but today, China’s rising ‘i-can’ generation are in the economic driving seat.

“China’s rapid social and economic transformation over the past three decades has given rise to a new age of consumer that we are calling the ‘i-can’ generation.

“Emboldened by years of economic growth, the ‘i-can’ generation are now empowered by the rising digital economy in China, represented by a new Taobao-WeChat digital purchasing and communication axis,” said the bank.

It said essentially, China’s ‘icans’ leapt from the pre-web era straight to the mobile Internet, skipping the personal computer altogether.

On the way, the ‘i-can’ generation’s e-commerce activity has created one of the world’s largest digital economies and is spawning a new generation of Chinese information technology (IT) companies which are now making their presence felt on the global stage.

The‘ i-can’ generation demographics characteristics combined the features of the west’s baby boomers and Millennials in one generation in which they have all the opportunity, optimism and wealth the baby boomers had with all the modern technology at their fingertips.

The bank said as products of the one-child policy, the generation had acquired an “I can do anything” attitude which is now transforming the country’s society and economy as they are also worldlier, entrepreneurial, individualistic, openminded and are willing to spend.

The ‘i-can’ cohort represents more than 400 million people, accounting for almost a third of China’s population and amounting to more than the working population in the US and Western Europe combined.

This new generation was expected to drive 65 per cent of consumption growth in China until 2020, when they will make up around 53 per cent of total consumption spending, up from 45 per cent in 2016, said the bank.

More than 95 per cent of these digital ‘i-cans’ are connected via their smartphones whereby roughly half a billion use their smartphones to make payments, with more than 200 million use them to order food takeaways.

This year, in just one day, Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant’s ‘Singles’ Day sales extravaganza hit US$25.4 billion, smashing its own record from last year and nearly doubling the US$12.8 billion that US retailers achieved between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday last year. — Bernama