Sagging consumption demand, repeated Covid-19 lockdowns and livestreaming’s market saturation have challenged the resilience of emerging Chinese brands. As authorities began promoting consumption upgrades around 2015, domestic brands such as ice-cream maker Zhongxuegao and Perfect Diary cosmetics, propped up by China’s maturing manufacturing industry and online marketing, were expected to compete with high-end international products, only to find their failed price strategies boosting domestic rivals instead. After imitating Japanese lifestyle retailers, Guangzhou-based Miniso issued a public apology when their Spanish-language Instagram account referred to its line of Disney dolls dressed in Chinese qipaos as Japanese geishas. Yet in just a couple of years, sales of BYD Auto’s electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles have surged because of better design and cheaper prices. By and large, industrial insiders still believe China’s consumptiondriven growth can be sustained.
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