Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Zhao Peng
At present, the mainland has a huge elderly population base and an accelerated aging rate, giving birth to a golden track - the silver economy.
The rise of the silver economy as a "golden track"
As China enters an aging society, the proportion of the elderly population is increasing year by year. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2023, the population aged 60 and above accounted for 21.1% of the country's population, marking the beginning of an aging society in mainland China. This proportion is expected to climb to 32% by 2040, and the trend of aging is becoming more pronounced.
Aging brings not only demographic changes, but also the transformation and upgrading of consumer demand. Modern elderly people pursue high-quality life and self-fulfillment. This has led to the rapid expansion of the scale of the silver economy market such as health care, sports and leisure for the elderly, and learning for the elderly. Behind this trend, the acceleration of the aging process and the improvement of policy support have also played an important role.
Recently, Quantum Song and CIC Consulting jointly released the "2023 White Paper on China's Middle-aged and Elderly Service Market: Silver Economy, Dazzling Golden Track" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper"). The white paper provides an in-depth analysis of the current situation and development potential of China's silver economy market, and conducts in-depth research on the consumption status, pain points and development trends of middle-aged and elderly consumers.
According to the data of the white paper, in 2023, the size of China's middle-aged and elderly consumer market will reach 14.4 trillion yuan in terms of consumption. From 2019 to 2023, the compound annual growth rate of China's middle-aged and elderly consumer market has shown a significant upward trend, of which the data of the elderly group is 11.1%, much higher than the data of the middle-aged population of 6.1%, highlighting the huge potential of the silver economy market.
The white paper predicts that from 2023 to 2028, the compound annual growth rate of consumption of middle-aged people in China will be 5.4%, while the compound annual growth rate of consumption in the elderly consumer market will be 9.4%.
The white paper analyzes elderly services and products from the three dimensions of "people-goods-field".
Based on an extensive survey of 5,710 middle-aged and elderly consumers aged 45 and above, Quantum Song and CIC jointly released a white paper. The white paper provides an in-depth analysis of the current situation and development potential of China's middle-aged and elderly market from the three dimensions of "people-goods-field", and provides in-depth insights and important reference conclusions for understanding and developing the middle-aged and elderly market. The research focus of the white paper includes the concerns and pain points of middle-aged and elderly consumption, the current situation and development trend of market segments of products and services, and the changes of middle-aged and elderly consumption channels.
"People" - the scale of the consumer market of middle-aged and elderly groups continues to expand, and high quality and high value have become key words.
Judging from the results of the white paper, the daily consumption concept of middle-aged and elderly people is more rational, and product quality is the most important factor for middle-aged and elderly groups when buying daily necessities, and product price, product function and product brand have an important impact on their decision-making. For the 45-64 year old, they attach more importance to brands. According to the white paper, 91.9% of respondents chose product quality as the most important factor when buying daily necessities.
81.9% of the respondents chose service quality as the most important factor when purchasing medical and elderly care services. People aged 45-64 pay more attention to personalization and customization, as well as coverage and protection, and their pain points are mainly focused on poor medical and elderly care service experience and high service prices. However, in terms of health care consumption, the attitudes of middle-aged and elderly groups are completely different, with 27.3% of the group paying more attention to the price of products, and the middle-aged and elderly groups are more concerned about the quality, safety and efficacy of health care products.
In addition, the middle-aged and elderly groups have a higher pursuit of spiritual consumption and are relatively insensitive to prices. Among the interviewed groups, only 18.1% of the middle-aged and elderly people believe that the cost of spiritual consumption is high. Conversely, more than half of the middle-aged and older population showed a preference for sports, interest-based classes, and travel. The middle-aged and elderly population have demonstrated the pursuit of a comprehensive quality of life and are willing to invest corresponding costs in it.
Source: CIC Consulting
"Goods" - the number of enterprises in the middle-aged and elderly industry track is huge and continues to increase, and the market potential of middle-aged and elderly-related products and services is endless.
In view of the problems of nutrition and health products, liquor, online education, milk powder for the middle-aged and elderly, beauty and skin care products, and tourism, the middle-aged and elderly have a greater demand, but there are also concerns about nutritional and health products. According to the white paper, among the middle-aged and elderly people, 47% are worried about the quality and safety of nutritional health products, and 43% have doubts about their efficacy, but nearly 45% of the middle-aged and elderly people still buy traditional Chinese medicine health products.
According to the white paper, the scale of China's liquor industry will exceed 750 billion in 2023, and middle-aged and elderly consumers will account for more than 30%. In the future, the consumption of middle-aged and elderly liquor will show a trend of online and health. Among liquor consumers, about 61% of consumers are no less inclined to buy liquor online in the future than offline channels.
In the wave of digitalization, middle-aged and elderly people are actively integrating into the Internet world. Online education offers significant advantages due to its convenience, flexibility, wide range of course options, high degree of autonomy in learning, and relatively low cost. These characteristics make online education an important part of the spiritual life consumption of middle-aged and elderly people, and meet their needs for continuous learning and self-improvement. According to the white paper, 65% of middle-aged and elderly people want online education to include health and wellness courses.
The white paper points out that China's middle-aged and elderly milk powder is still an emerging category, and there is still a lot of consumption potential that has not been fully tapped. Only 30.2% of the middle-aged and elderly consumer groups have purchased middle-aged and elderly milk powder, and 19.8% of the middle-aged and elderly people who have never purchased middle-aged and elderly milk powder do not know or have never heard of this type of product. With the deepening of market education, consumer acceptance of this emerging category has increased. It is worth mentioning that niche categories such as goat milk powder and camel powder, with their unique nutritional value, are gradually winning the favor of middle-aged and elderly consumers and becoming a new choice for their daily nutritional supplements.
Middle-aged and older people travel frequently, with more than 60% traveling three or more times a year. According to the white paper, the main reasons why middle-aged and elderly people do not buy tour groups are the lack of suitable products and high costs. Despite age, the middle-aged and elderly people still maintain a strong interest in tourism and desire to consume. They show a strong interest in cultural landscapes, historical stories and traditional culture, so the study tour mode that combines cultural experience and entertainment elements can better meet their expectations and needs for travel.
With the improvement of time and economic situation, middle-aged and older women are experiencing a major shift in their lifestyles, their focus on beauty is increasing again, and skincare products are gradually becoming a necessity in their daily lives. Among them, middle-aged and elderly women also pay special attention to beauty products such as foundation and lipstick.
Source: CIC Consulting
"Field" - The potential of middle-aged and elderly groups on social media is constantly being released, and content e-commerce platforms are becoming more and more important in the consumption channels of middle-aged and elderly groups.
With the "penetration" of the Internet into the middle-aged and elderly groups, the potential of the middle-aged and elderly groups on social media has been continuously released, and the proportion of middle-aged and elderly people over 50 years old in the structure of Chinese netizens has continued to increase, accounting for 32.5% in 2023. Social media platforms and e-commerce platforms such as Douyin and Channels are also continuing to attract middle-aged and elderly people, and compared with text-only and image-based content, short videos have a lower threshold for dissemination, are more entertaining, and can better fill the leisure time of retirees.
According to the data of the white paper, among the middle-aged and elderly people surveyed, e-commerce platforms and offline stores accounted for 65.4% and 47.2% respectively. As an emerging channel, content e-commerce platforms currently account for 25.3%. It can be seen that traditional e-commerce platforms and offline stores are still the channels for middle-aged and elderly people to obtain services and products in China, but the development momentum of emerging channels cannot be ignored.
Source: CIC Consulting
Quantum Song has a forward-looking layout of the silver economy
Foresee the future, plan before you act. Long before the release of the white paper, the quantum song sounded the "clarion call" to enter the silver economy.
In the past few years, while serving existing users, Quantum Song has continued to deeply understand the needs of users, quickly discovered the huge potential of the silver economy, and launched the Thousand Feet Academy in 2022, cutting into this golden track.
The forward-looking strategic vision has made Quantum Song an industry leader in the field of silver economy. In terms of total revenue in 2022, Quantum Song has become the largest service provider in China's adult online learning market and China's adult personal interest learning market.
According to the data of the "2024 Marketing Guide for Middle-aged and Elderly Interest Education Courses", the market size of middle-aged and elderly interest education is growing rapidly, and 77% of users are willing to continue learning. By providing interest learning services, Qianqi Academy, a subsidiary of Quantum Song, helps middle-aged and elderly users broaden the boundaries of life and help them achieve the life goal of "learning and having fun for the elderly".
In order to meet the growing needs of middle-aged and elderly users, Quantum Song has created a combination of "online + offline" mode to further enrich the elderly life of users.
In terms of online, through online calligraphy classes, piano lessons, Baduanjin and other rich and diverse courses, the depth of knowledge and the breadth of interests are expanded, which fully meets the needs of middle-aged and elderly users to learn interests and skills and enhance their self-worth, creates a lifelong learning concept, and integrates traditional culture and art courses with digital technology. In terms of service mode, multi-pronged teaching methods such as live broadcast, recording and broadcasting, and community are adopted to help students get rid of isolated learning.
In terms of offline, various competitions, exchange activities and study tours are held, which further enriches the learning life of users and makes learning more vivid and interesting. In view of the pain points of middle-aged and elderly groups such as more free time, strong social needs but difficult to travel, and few partners, the "Thousand Feet Study Tour" activity was innovatively launched, and a new study tour experience was created for the middle-aged and elderly groups with the model of "cultural tourism + research". This initiative not only solves their mobility challenges, but also provides them with more opportunities to interact with their peers.
By creating a "online + offline" closed-loop of silver services, providing high-quality services and refined operation management, Quantum Song has further promoted the steady improvement of the number of users and user satisfaction, and successfully seized the opportunity of the development of the silver economy.
As of March 31, 2024, Quantum Song Group, as a leader in China's adult online learning market and personal interest learning market, has 121 million registered users. In the third quarter of fiscal 2024, the number of paying subscribers in the quarter increased by 48.4% year-over-year to approximately 500,000.
The release of the white paper is another major milestone in the layout of the silver economy of Quantum Song. As a leading provider of online learning services in China, Quantum Song (NASDAQ: QSG) is committed to improving people's quality of life and well-being by providing lifelong opportunities for personal learning and development.
Li Peng, founder and chairman of Quantum Song Group, said: "We are well aware that 'pleasing oneself' and 'socializing' are the core needs of the middle-aged and elderly groups, so Quantum Song is committed to providing middle-aged and elderly users with more diversified and higher-quality products and services, in order to allow more middle-aged and elderly users to 'live longer and live better'. ”