How Ice Cream Brands Expand Business in China?

With the continuous improvement of the national economic level and the enhancement of consumption ability, Chinese consumers’ willingness to purchase snack food continues to rise. The market size of China’s ice cream industry is expanding year by year, and we can foresee a bright future for the Chinese ice cream market.

In this article, we will have a comprehensive analysis of the Chinese ice cream market, which can help you understand the market in detail, and further, lead your brand to enter the Chinese market smoothly.

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Market Size

Since 2015, with the rapid development of China’s food industry and the improvement of people’s living standards, the market size of the Chinese ice cream industry has also increased yearly. According to Statista, the market size of the Chinese ice cream industry in 2021 already reached ¥160 bn, which has doubled compared with 2015, and at the same time, increased by 8.84% year-on-year in 2020 (the growth rate in 2020 was slowed down due to the impact of the COVID). In 2022, the market size even reached ¥167.2 bn.

Time to Get Familiar with the target audiences

The previous part of the article aimed to tell you that the Chinese ice cream market is pretty promising. So, once your brand enters the Chinese market, in order to operate your brand nicely and gain consumer loyalty in China, you are for sure need to learn more.

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Following are the tips we have prepared for you.

What is the Most Acceptable Unit Price Range for Chinese Ice Cream Consumers?

According to iiMedia Research, the acceptance of Chinese consumers for the unit price of ice cream is generally between ¥3-10, accounting for 70.9%, and 12.3% of consumers can accept ¥10-15. Meanwhile, the acceptance of ice cream with a unit price of more than ¥20 is shallow.

We can confidently tell you that it is difficult to find one below ¥3 in the Chinese market today, and the unit price of ¥3-10 has become the norm.

Higher prices mean more profits, and distribution channels can also have more significant profit margins. Supermarkets and convenience stores that are more willing to sell high-priced ice cream are more likely to become gathering places for “Ice Cream Assassins” (the phrase describes the feeling of consumers in China who pick an ice cream from a freezer, expecting to pay a few yuan to get cool from the intense heat, but were only to be taken by surprise by the exorbitant price when they come to pay).

Chinese Ice Cream Consumers’ Image

Regarding gender, women are the main force of ice cream consumption, accounting for 62.8%, and men account for 37.2%. From the age group perspective, young adults aged 18-29 and 30-39 are the leading groups, both accounting for more than 40%.

So, we can say that ice cream is quite popular among the younger generations, especially office ladies who are busy working. These people have high purchasing power and willingness. And with the rapid development of society, the pace of life and work has been dramatically accelerated, causing social pressure naturally increases.

Driven by the rising demand, the ice cream market in China and even the world has shown a gratifying trend of rising. The need represented by quality life and the pursuit of pleasure can be gathered through e-commerce, and it is easier to form a specific market size.

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Nowadays Chinese E-Commerce &
Why Choose to Sale via Cross-Border E-Commerce Platforms

Within a few years, we have seen the development of e-commerce platforms. The entire e-commerce industry has developed from traditional e-commerce to the current live e-commerce, with 93.2% of netizens being heavy users of short video platforms.

How to find accurate users on the short video platform for vertical benchmarking is the key for brands(both domestic and overseas) to win in this competitive short video platform “arena”. The users of the short video platform are sticky, and whoever seizes the users’ usage time has a higher probability of making them place orders. The overall trend in the future is to accelerate the pace of development of the short video platform industry.

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Cooperate with a Chinese E-Commerce-Focused Platform is the Key to Achieving your Goal

After reading the articles above, you must know that Deep Digital China is always ready to help your brands enter the dynamic and vast China e-commerce market. Our company has a professional team with good enough experience and practical success cases to answer all kinds of questions you encounter while exploring the market of China.

For more questions about collaborating or want to learn more about the Chinese Ice Cream Market, snack market, or even the whole Chinese E-commerce Market, please feel free to contact us!