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Will the Global Middle Class Define Lower Cost Consumption

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Forbes – global consumption patterns (and hence growth and production) will increasingly be defined by the needs and wants of a new global middle class. In the past, global consumption (and hence production) was defined by America’s middle earners. We face a complex series of changes.

Nextbigfuture has covered the emergence of the global middle class for a number of years.

Smith Barney – Asian Affluence: The Emerging 21st Century Middle Class, June 2011 (27 pages)

Global spending by the global middle class will rise from $21 trillion in 2011 to $56 trillion in 2030. 80% of the demand growth will come from Asia.

1.8 billion global middle class in 2009. 3.2 billion estimated for 2020 and 4.9 billion in 2030.

There will be a large number of people in the lower end of the $10-100 per day global middle class range by 2020. It will not be until 2030 when they will have mostly moved the middle upper part of that range.

Forbes is suggesting that there will be more innovation to provide “good enough” products for those in the $10-30 per day range. There will be more $100 or less android smartphones and $100 or cheaper tablets and $2000-3000 cars.

American and Europeans will have to do more freelance work to make up for the lack of stable, traditional jobs.

There will also be more small business and startup ecosystems of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands small companies around all of the major companies. All of the companies that support Ebay, Alibaba, GE and other major companies.

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