Chinese companies huge advantage vs. South Korea, Japan peers

BEIJING — Chinese brands turning to global markets for growth have a major advantage over the first wave of Asian businesses that went global: a large ethnic Chinese diaspora.

That’s according to a study published Thursday by U.S. consulting firm Bain and Company. Their analysis looked mostly at data through the year 2023 for 150 Asia-Pacific headquartered consumer goods companies that are publicly traded.

“The ethnic Chinese population overseas is so large in many markets that I think there’s a disproportionate opportunity for Chinese companies to target ethnic Chinese populations in other markets,” David Zehner, senior partner at Bain, told CNBC.

Now with growth slowing domestically, Chinese companies are “seeing some of the success stories that have been possible, particularly in Japan and Korea, and they’re looking to emulate that success,” he said. Zehner noted many of the companies have started their global expansion by focusing on Asia before expanding to Europe and North America.

About 60 million ethnic Chinese live outside mainland China, according to the United Nations.

Despite being a minority in the U.S., there were about 5.2 million people of Chinese descent living in the country as of 2023, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. And in the Asian nation of Singapore, population 5.92 million, ethnic Chinese accounted for 74% of the total, according to a government report as of end-June 2023.

“There are many of these Chinese companies that have really ambitious global mindsets and are able to take the sort of entrepreneurial, fast-innovation capability that they built domestically and use that to create new positions overseas,” said Zehner, who leads Bain’s consumer practice in the Asia-Pacific region from Sydney.

“So while South Korean and Japanese companies could equally think about the same strategies, I think Chinese companies, in some ways, are sort of disproportionately advantaged.”

Chinese companies from home appliance brand Haier to robotics startup Keenon have accelerated their global expansion in recent years, especially as domestic consumption has remained sluggish since the pandemic.

Chinese smartphone and home appliance company Xiaomi already generates more than 40% of its revenue from overseas markets. In the last three quarters, double-digit growth for Alibaba‘s overseas e-commerce business has meant its exceeded cloud to become the second-largest business segment behind domestic e-commerce.

Relative to South Korean and Japanese companies, China-based consumer businesses have yet to generate as much revenue from overseas markets, according to Bain’s study. It looked at four subsectors; consumer electronics, consumer health, apparel and fast-moving consumer goods, or goods that are sold relatively quickly and at low costs.

All 16 of the Japanese companies in the fast-moving consumer goods segment earned at least 10% in revenue from international markets, with five generating more than half of their sales overseas. The four South Korean companies in the segment made 10% to 50% of their revenue abroad.

In contrast, Greater China also had 16 companies in fast-moving consumer goods, but five focused only on the domestic market. Nine earned up to 10% of their revenue from overseas, while only two made between 10% to 50% in sales abroad.

But Zehner said he expected Chinese companies are just picking up steam. “I think there will be many opportunities for Chinese companies in many parts of the world to build categories where they’re not developed.”

He also noted that “in many Western markets, the influence of Asian culture and Asian brands has been growing.”

Among recent moves to expand overseas, Chinese retailer Miniso on Aug. 31 opened its largest store to date in Jakarta, Indonesia, and claimed record first-day sales of 1.18 million yuan ($166,000). The company, which sells household and daily use consumer products, said it opened its 200th store in the U.S. on Aug. 24.

Miniso’s overseas revenue for the quarter ended June 30 rose by 35.5% to the equivalent of $207.8 million. Mainland China revenue grew by 18% to $347.5 million during the same period.

It’s far from a straight path to success. After five years of trying to enter the Singapore market via a local partner, Chinese tea brand Chagee this summer decided to revamp its strategy by directly owning the stores. Other Chinese brands are using Singapore as a cultural testbed in order to reach consumers in the West.

“The prize will go to the companies that are able to learn quickly, and adapt quickly, and not assume that everything works domestically will necessarily work just as well overseas,” Zehner said.

“You need to approach international growth with a long-term mindset, not a get-rich-quick mindset,” he said, adding that companies should not expect a “direct, immediate return on every dollar of marketing investment from day one.”