You have no saved articles. Why don't you add some?
Omicron outbreaks and lockdowns are hitting the Chinese economy hard, but these are boom times for makers of fitness equipment, pre-prepared meals, and work from home gear.
Something went wrong. Error code 1.
This feature is only available for paying subscribers. You can continue reading without saving your preference, or you can subscribe now.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
This feature is for paid subscribers only.
COVID-19 and the resultant lockdowns have had a deleterious effect on China’s economy that is now starting to reflect in the economic data: April saw the first negative industrial growth in two years. But conversely, the pandemic has also created a new economic dynamo: The stay-at-home economy.
While the industrial sector is struggling with supply chain management and rising raw material costs, the population confined to their homes are doing it their own way, exercising and buying fitness products, pre-prepared meals, and smart home devices; and working from home with new office furniture and video-conferencing equipment.
There is something akin to a fitness fever going on in China centered on young people in the home, who are watching “cloud fitness” videos online, and buying home exercise equipment, nutritional supplements and slimming foods.
In 2021, China’s fitness market (i.e. including anything from gyms, fitness centers, personal trainers and equipment to food and supplements, clothing, and sporting goods) was worth about 786.6 billion yuan ($116.47 billion), and is forecast to reach 882 billion yuan ($130.59 billion) in 2022.
Pre-prepared meals and vegetables have become very popular in the cities. These are complete meal kits for dishes as complicated as spicy crayfish or Korean fried chicken that require minimal preparation, often just heating up or adding boiling water.
The stay-at-home economy has driven up demand for smart home devices. Shipments of a wide range of smart devices, including locks, speakers, lights, and VR games, will be around 260 million units in 2022, when the smart home market is expected to reach around 200 billion yuan ($29.61 billion).
The rise of the stay-at-home economy has also greatly increased demand for products that facilitate working from home, notably work furniture and video conferencing equipment.
A lot happens in China’s economy when you’re sleeping. Luckily there’s ChinaEdge – a free newsletter you can read in less than 2 minutes, delivered at 9am ET daily.
COVID and Beijing’s response to it has shackled parts of China’s economy, but boosted economic development focused on the home.
The stay-at-home economy might be tied in large part to COVID, and will fade away with the pandemic, but as in other countries, some habits like the consumption of pre-prepared meals and the use of home fitness equipment are likely to linger. Working from home is also now a reality for many white collar workers and the companies that employ them, meaning that smart devices and other products made for work and consumption will have a lasting and increasingly important presence in Chinese people’s homes.
Barry van Wyk spent eight years in China studying Chinese in Tianjin and working as a consultant and project manager in Beijing. He holds a Master of Arts in economic history from the London School of Economics (2005). Read more
Former U.S. Ambassador to China
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Performance cookies are key in allowing web site screens and content to load quickly on all types of devices.CookieDescription_gatThis cookies is installed by Google Universal Analytics to throttle the request rate to limit the colllection of data on high traffic sites.YSCThis cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos.
Preference cookies are used to store user preferences to provide them with content that is customized accordingly. These cookies also allow for the viewing of embedded content, such as videos.CookieDescriptionbcookieThis cookie is set by linkedIn. The purpose of the cookie is to enable LinkedIn functionalities on the page.langThis cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website.lidcThis cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing.PugTThis cookie is set by pubmatic.com. The purpose of the cookie is to check when the cookies were last updated on the browser in order to limit the number of calls to the server-side cookie store.
Analytics cookies help us understand how our visitors interact with the website. It helps us understand the number of visitors, where the visitors are coming from, and the pages they navigate. The cookies collect this data and report it anonymously.CookieDescription__gadsThis cookie is set by Google and stored under the name dounleclick.com. This cookie is used to track how many times users see a particular advert which helps in measuring the success of the campaign and calculate the revenue generated by the campaign. These cookies can only be read from the domain that it is set on so it will not track any data while browsing through another sites._gaThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors._gidThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form._omappvpThe cookie is set to identify new vs returning users. The cookie is used in conjunction with _omappvs cookie to determine whether a user is new or returning._omappvsThe cookie is used to in conjunction with the _omappvp cookies. If the cookies are set, the user is a returning user. If neither of the cookies are set, the user is a new user.GPSThis cookie is set by Youtube and registers a unique ID for tracking users based on their geographical location
Advertisement cookies help us provide our visitors with the most relevant ads and marketing campaigns.CookieDescription__qcaThis cookie is associated with Quantcast and is used for collecting anonymized data to analyze log data from different websites to create reports that enables the website owners and advertisers provide ads for the appropriate audience segments._fbpThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.everest_g_v2The cookie is set under eversttech.net domain. The purpose of the cookie is to map clicks to other events on the client's website.frThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.IDEUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.mcThis cookie is associated with Quantserve to track anonymously how a user interact with the website.personalization_idThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.PUBMDCIDThis cookie is set by pubmatic.com. The cookie stores an ID that is used to display ads on the users' browser.TDCPMThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.TDIDThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.test_cookieThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the users' browser supports cookies.uidThis cookie is used to measure the number and behavior of the visitors to the website anonymously. The data includes the number of visits, average duration of the visit on the website, pages visited, etc. for the purpose of better understanding user preferences for targeted advertisments.uuidTo optimize ad relevance by collecting visitor data from multiple websites such as what pages have been loaded.uuidcThis cookie is used to stores information about how the user uses the website such as what pages have been loaded and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This data is used to provide users with relevant ads.VISITOR_INFO1_LIVEThis cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.