Young people
According to the survey, the Young people in China aren’t spending on romance. For many years, young couples holding enormous bouquets of roses were familiar. Sight during the Qixi Festival, an ancient holiday celebrating love and loyalty. People would flock to social media to show off brand-new iPhones and Louis. Vuitton handbags gifted by their partners. As well as photos of dinners at fancy restaurants. During the Chinese version of Valentine’s Day, which typically falls in July or August each year. But this year’s festival was on Saturday, and it was a very different story. People went online to complain about the lack of gift-giving and festive spirit. Citing a sluggish economy and tough job market.
Down fall of love tax.
The hashtag “consumption plummets on Chinese Valentine’s Day. Are young people unwilling to pay the love tax?”. Became the No 1 trending topic on the Weibo platform on Saturday, drawing 200 million views.
“The Qixi Festival is not as robust as previous years. It feels almost desolate,” one user wrote.
Flower shops took to Xiaohongshu,
Owners of some flower shops took to Xiaohongshu, another popular platform, to bemoan the lack of customers, posting images of unsold roses lining their stores. It was not able to independently confirm their claims.
Other posts recalled forlornly that couples used to have money to spend when the world’s second largest economy was doing well. China is currently plagued by a litany of woes from sluggish consumer spending to a persistent property slump and a mounting debt crisis.
How China’s lovers behave
How China’s lovers behave is an issue for global businesses — and the government in Beijing. In recent weeks, a number of Western multinationals, from cosmetics giant L’Oreal to carmaker Volkswagen, have sounded the alarm over weak demand in China as consumer confidence remains in the doldrums.
lackluster mood.
The lackluster mood is also affecting the Chinese government’s efforts to encourage marriage as a way of addressing falling birth rates and an aging population. A shrinking population is likely to be a drag on economic growth.
In the first half of 2024, just 3.43 million couples got married, half the number recorded for the same period 10 years ago, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
state broadcaster CCTV
On Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV released a video featuring rare family portraits of a young Chinese leader Xi Jinping, his wife Peng Liyuan and their baby daughter to celebrate their marriage, which spanned more than three decades.
But the message failed to convince, with people complaining on social media about not being able to start a family because they owed money or have to work long work hours.
“When people born after 1990 are now in [tens of thousands of yuan of] debt, as ‘996007’ becomes the norm, where do people find the mood to date?” the Weibo user asked.
“996” and “007”
“996” and “007” refer to the notorious work hours demanded by some of China’s biggest conglomerates. The former refers to workers toiling away from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Some are in a “007” situation, meaning they work every day.
Advertising agency WPP (WPP) said last week that second-quarter revenue in China plunged almost a quarter on the previous year — and the outlook is not much better. “I’m expecting the second half to remain very challenging in China,” Chief Financial Officer Joanne Wilson added on an earnings call. “I expect for the full year that (revenue) will be down double digits.”
Volkswagen and Mercedes were similarly glum in their assessment of China’s economy.
“I think everybody knows that since we came out of the Covid restrictions beginning of last year, consumer sentiment, it didn’t come back,” Mercedes Benz Group chairman Ola Kaellenius told analysts on July 26. “We don’t know how long it will take, what it will take for China’s consumers to regain that confidence.”