New trends: China's pet economy is booming

Cao Qianwang, a staff worker at a pet-care center in east China's Shanghai, has received multiple calls asking about how the pets will be cared for at the center as the May Day holiday is approaching.

"The cat locker and dog cage during holidays are often fully booked. I used to take care of about 20 kittens and five or six dogs every day," said Cao, whose work includes taking videos of the pets while walking them and observing the pets' physical conditions.

The pet-care centers are part of China's booming economy, catering to pets' every need with premium food products, accessories, healthcare services and so on.

In 2023, the size of the urban pet consumption market in China was 279.3 billion yuan (around $39 billion), and it is expected to reach 361.3 billion yuan in 2026, according to China's Pet Industry White Paper 2023-2024 (Consumption Report), which was released by Petdata.cn, a pet industry market observer.

Born in 1998, Wan Linxin used to spend 500 to 1,000 yuan each month on his little corgi named Happy. The expenditure basically covers food, snacks and healthcare products such as vitamins.

Thanks to the little corgi, Wan is used to stepping out of the house more often to walk it and developing a healthy routine. Besides, Wan also finds that he would like to buy anything he thinks is good for the little Corgi.

Like Wan, a man surnamed Han told Chinanews.com that he felt it was worthwhile no matter how much money he had spent on his dog.

Han, who basically gets off work very late on weekdays, said he has a sense of companion when he finds his dog sitting at the door and waiting for him, no matter how late he gets home at night.

What Wan and Han have felt towards their pets echoes many pet keepers' feeling that the little furry pets are like family members, and the feeling is even more so when the keepers are the elderly, whose children don't live with them and cannot accompany them.

Business insiders said the declining marriage rate and the accelerating aging trend in China have both spawned more demand for pet companionship.

As living standards have improved, pet owners are willing to spend on quality food, medical care and pampering services. A woman surnamed Zhang told Chinanews.com that she spends 7,000 to 8,000 yuan each month on clothes for her dog, whose blue clothes match its headwear.

"There is a room dedicated to filling my dog's clothes, and many of them are customized. Besides, I take it to several pet tour groups each year and also organize a birthday party for the puppy, which costs nearly 10,000 yuan."

Zhang is not alone when it comes to heavy spending on one's pet, as more and more Chinese, especially the young, nowadays are willing to spend a lot of money to let their pets enjoy a quality life.

"At present, the pets' young owners have diverse demands for services and personalized needs," Li Yuxuan, owner of a pet club in north China's Tianjin Municipality, told Chinanews.com. For example, besides clothes, food and healthcare, the pets also have birthday parties, tourism, socializing and other activities, Li added.

Noting that his club held 55 pet-related activities in 2023, including tourism and fashion shows, Li estimated that there will be at least 100 pet-related activities held by the club in 2024.

As societies increasingly care about pets, the pet economy will grow even further and embrace more specialized and lavish products and services,said Zhou Chunhua, secretary-general of the China Pet Industry Association.

Pet veterinary care, intelligent devices, social platforms, eco-friendly food supplies and sustainable lifestyles catering to pets are also expected to fuel expansion.

"The pet economy is gradually evolving from simple product consumption to a new consumerism with multiple consumption segments," said Dong Weiwei, deputy director of the Institute of Economic Analysis and Prediction at the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences.

Dong also noted that the Chinese pet market penetration rate is still low in comparison with that in developed countries.

"It is necessary to improve pet supplies and various service systems and carry out forward-looking exploration in product development, service model innovation, and standardized management," Dong said.