As consumers grow more cautious, understanding shifts in global income and expenditure is essential for future-focused strategic planning. Businesses must adapt to evolving purchasing power and spending patterns to uncover actionable growth opportunities. With robust income gains anticipated across emerging markets, particularly in Asia, proactive strategies will be crucial.

In 2024, global disposable income per capita growth slowed to 2% in real terms, with a further slowdown expected in 2025. Amidst geopolitical uncertainty and economic turbulence, consumers are becoming increasingly strategic about their spending. By identifying key demand shifts and providing actionable insights, this report equips businesses to serve value-focused consumers, tap into underserved markets, and capitalise on emerging growth opportunities.

Asia Pacific remains the largest hot drinks market globally, but growth has been moderate due to lingering cost-of-living pressures. Foodservice recovery is slow, with out-of-home consumption still below pre-COVID levels. The market is being reshaped by health and wellness trends, digital and D2C expansion, and stronger localised product strategies. Looking ahead, evolving consumer needs, trade shifts, and geopolitics will fuel a more localised and competitive market landscape.

Urban markets are undergoing rapid transformation, shaped by demographic shifts, rising incomes, evolving consumer preferences and accelerating digitalisation. This report offers insights and forecasts on economic, demographic and consumer spending trends across global cities over the period to 2040, highlighting emerging growth opportunities, from expanding urban hubs in Asia and Africa to the silver economy in ageing developed markets.

Visa and Mastercard are bridging card and digital wallet networks by forming partnerships, enabling transactions across networks. Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase has risen in global issuer ranking through acquisitions. Western global banks are divesting low-profit personal businesses in emerging markets, creating opportunities for local banks to grow. Furthermore, incumbents need fintech partnerships screened by market research, to drive digital transformation to compete with digital challengers.

By 2029, Asia Pacific will host 56% of the global population aged 65+, representing a trillion-dollar opportunity. This report provides a critical framework to understand, develop and address the unmet needs of this rapidly growing demographic. Leveraging Euromonitor's Inclusivity - Empowerment - Indulgence framework, companies that act now will secure future growth and maintain relevance in a shifting consumer landscape.

The group of major emerging economies, BRICS, has seen a rapid rise in economic power during recent decades. As the group expanded further to include more members in recent years, its growing economic and demographic influence is reshaping global trade, investment and consumer market dynamics. This report explores the implications of BRICS expansion for the global economic and consumer landscapes, highlighting key risks and opportunities for businesses.

The commercial payment reconciliation market is evolving driven by payment firms, banks and business software vendors. Currently, the sector focuses on driving penetration of virtual products while leveraging ERP/accounting integration. Emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI will leapfrog development in transparency, security and automation, reducing human intervention. Also, data quality has to be improved and standardised. Furthermore, digital payment diversity and SME inclusion are chal

After seeing a weakening in its growth rate in 2020, when the pandemic first hit the region, consumer health in Asia Pacific had then been recording strong growth until 2024, when normalisation of sales and a difficult macroeconomic environment in China slowed the overall regional performance. Positive growth is expected over the forecast period, driven by factors such as ageing populations, increasing health awareness and rising levels of self-medication.

After a return to healthy growth in 2021, following the pandemic-induced decline in 2020, snacks sales were again negatively impacted by COVID-19 in 2022, as case numbers spiked in China, the region’s biggest market. However, value sales managed to increase marginally in Asia Pacific in 2022, with further positive growth seen in 2023 and 2024, in spite of the high inflation being seen in a number of countries.

Sales of alcoholic drinks in Asia Pacific suffered two bad years in the pandemic, in both 2020 and 2022, the latter mainly due to the return of COVID-19 in China, the dominant country market. Growth in 2023 was also subdued, with Japan and Vietnam in decline and China only seeing a relatively weak recovery. Year-on-year growth rates will gradually improve over the forecast period, with India and Vietnam among the more dynamic markets.

Metal packaging continues to be an important, and growing, pack type in Asia Pacific, led by metal beverage cans for soft and alcoholic drinks, which accounted for the bulk of new metal packaging sales in the region over 2018-2023. While metal bottles have been enjoying a boom in the Chinese beer market, metal food cans remain the next-biggest pack type, still widely employed in a number of shelf stable food categories.

The pandemic proved to be a more extended phenomenon in Asia Pacific than in other regions, with some countries’ travel industry negatively impacted in both 2020 and 2021, and China, the biggest market, seeing declines in both 2020 and 2022. A strong recovery has been underway since 2023, although many parameters were still yet to return to their pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2024. The coming years are expected to see positive growth, with online continuing to take share from offline.

After a difficult couple of years, the Asia Pacific consumer electronics industry returned to recording positive growth in its retail unit volume sales in 2024. While inflation and a depreciating yen continued to impact the performance in Japan, India kept on recording healthy growth and China registered a sales increase after two years of decline. TWS earbuds continue to set the pace in terms of growth, while smartphones dominate overall sales.

Connected and autonomous vehicles are becoming more widespread, reflecting the automotive industry's digital and technological shift. This report sizes the autonomous vehicle market, specifying the countries and brands embracing driverless technologies. It also assesses consumer perceptions, expectations and attitudes regarding connected and autonomous technologies. Finally, the report examines the main industries poised to take advantage of the shift to connected and autonomous cars.

Fragrances are gaining relevance among consumers experiencing anxiety and looking for emotional wellness. Fragrances, however, face many challenges, as they compete with aromatherapy and other sensory options. Fragrances are closely associated with emotions, but there is room for innovation in neuroscience-based fragrances. Beyond claims, fragrances’ role in emotional wellbeing is about the revival of memories, nostalgia and gourmand scents able to trigger positive emotions.

Skin health positioning in fragrances is an under-penetrated space. Trending claims address skin sensitivity, but consumers are likely to demand more substantiated, specific claims. Skin health claims are significant drivers of the fragrance consumer journey in Western Europe and Southeast Asia, while consumers in North America and the Middle East and Africa are also receptive. Emerging formats make up a small piece of the market, but are well-poised to grow as players look to expand product var

In addition to the problems caused by the pandemic in 2020-2022, some countries in the region (eg Japan) have also been impacted by inflation in recent years. Nevertheless, after three years of decline, positive, if extremely modest, growth was seen in 2023, with the Indian market a primary driver of these long-awaited signs of recovery. The dynamic Indian market will be responsible for 38% of new sales regionally over 2023-2028, with China, despite more modest growth, adding a further 23%.

While cigarettes were recording declining volume sales in 2023, positive growth was being seen in real value terms, helped in no small part by an ongoing trend towards premium brands in China, the region’s dominant market. However, e-vapour products saw another major decline due to the raft of new regulations on these products in China. Heated tobacco continued to record strong growth, with Japan remaining the biggest market for these products globally.

Eyewear suffered badly when the pandemic hit Asia Pacific in 2020, with full recovery then delayed as the return of lockdowns in China in 2022 pushed regional sales into decline again. However, rising incidences of myopia and presbyopia due to the ever-increasing time spent in front of screens and ageing populations are helping to drive growth. The importance of e-commerce continues to grow, both as a sales channel as well as in terms of offering an omnichannel approach to sales and marketing.

This report analyses the e-commerce landscape in China, South Korea and Japan. It highlights the importance of these markets for domestic strategy and international expansion. The report showcases top retailers and focuses on consumer preferences, product expansion and seamless shopping experiences. It also examines the competitive landscape and how small brands can leverage e-commerce post-pandemic. As a leading e-commerce region, this report is vital reading for both regional and global player

Although sales were stagnating in Japan and declining in South Korea in 2023, a strong rebound in China helped drive positive growth in the overall regional toys and games market in this year. This followed the resurgence of COVID-19 cases in China a year earlier, which led to declining toy and games sales amid renewed lockdowns. Kidults continue to be a key target for traditional toys and games, with players also increasingly focussing on gender-neutral products to widen the target market.

The briefing explores structural drivers of inflation and their impact on the global economy and business environment. Factors such as demographics changes, globalisation reset, decarbonisation, AI revolution and higher debt levels would add to the higher price pressures. Companies will need to monitor and adapt to the changing macro environment.

After being negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years, beauty and personal care was recording positive growth in real value terms in Asia Pacific in 2023. However, a difficult economic backdrop, such as high inflation resulting in rising costs and prices in Japan, was holding back the recovery from the pandemic losses in some countries. The forecast period is generally expected to see healthy annual growth rates in real value terms in the region.