Welcome to Jing Daily‘s China Luxury Brief: the day’s top news on the business of luxury and culture in China, all in one place. Look below for the top stories for November 21, 2013.#
1. Move Over, Oscars: Golden Horse Glamour Brings Branding Opportunities#
"This year marks the 50th anniversary for the Golden Horse Awards (金马奖), which takes place in Taiwan and gains a larger amount of global attention every year as the Chinese film market expands. Last week, Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee said that he believes that Hollywood is going to be paying much closer attention to the annual event, stating, 'I think in 10 years’ time our market is bigger than the Hollywood market. So it comes naturally.'"
2. On China's Roads, Where Luxury Risks Becoming Ordinary#
"Luxury car dealers are resorting to offering customers massages, mini-golf and other gimmicks, hoping this will give them an edge in a ferociously competitive Chinese market where brand loyalty is less common than in the West."
[Reuters]
3. Rivals Aim to Break German Hold on China Luxury-Car Market#
"Now, a club of smaller scale luxury brands have China in their cross hairs. In the past year General Motors Co.'s Cadillac, Tata Motors Ltd.'s Jaguar Land Rover, and Chinese-owned Swedish brand Volvo have detailed plans to spend billions of dollars on factories in China that would bring at least half a million additional luxury cars to the market beginning 2015."
[WSJ]
4. China's Smaller Cities Thirst For the Luxe Life#
"Shoppers in the Louis Vuitton flagship at the Yanlord Landmark mall are buying this season’s handbags in bright purples and blues. Just outside the store, a woman in crystal-encrusted high heels and a man carrying a bulging Dior shopping bag walk by. And two men stroll along arm-in-arm, one holding a black Bottega Veneta hand-braided clutch."
[NYT]
5. China’s Billionaires Youngest In The World#
"The new study by UBS and Wealth-X studied the demographics of 157 known Chinese billionaires, which make up the second-largest group of billionaires in the world after the United States, which has 515. China is gaining ground quickly, however—as can be seen from the chart above, it has the fastest rate of wealth accumulation among billionaires."
6. Inspiration From China's Villages#
"When Angel Chang brews a pot of tea these days she uses leaves from a rural area in southwest China, the same place where her latest designs were created."
[NYT]
7. Logo Fatigue? Chinese Now Want Understated Luxury#
"'There's one thing we have to watch happening in China, which is logo fatigue,' said Gildo Zegna, CEO of Ermenegildo Zegna Group, which has 80 stores in 36 cities across China, at the International New York Times S.E.A of Luxury Conference on Thursday."
[CNBC]
8. Lexus Launches Face-Lifted CT 200h In China#
"While a flurry of new car models are being paraded this week at auto shows in Los Angeles and Tokyo, Toyota's luxury brand Lexus is using the week's other big auto show in China to unveil the latest version of its CT 200h."
[AP]
9. German Auto Makers See A Promising 2014 In China#
"Between January and October, Audi saw China sales—including Hong Kong and Macau—total 399,330 cars, about a 20% increase from the corresponding period last year. Sales of BMW cars during the same period were also up by a similar percentage to 295,452 cars."
[WSJ]
10. Nissan Pulls Ahead In China#
"While Audi, BMW and Daimler dominate the global market for luxury sedans, Audi stole a march on its German peers in China by being the first to develop cars with longer bodies and more leg room in the back. This year Daimler, the laggard of the three, is making a big push by offering similarly tailored models."
[FT]