Lower-tier cities grabbing luxury market attention in China

Shopping haven: Visitors walk past a Christian Dior advertisement at a shopping mall in Shanghai. A stronger return of Chinese luxury consumers is expected this year. — Bloomberg

BEIJING: As luxury brands penetrate China’s lower-tier cities, the market for such goods is acquiring new geographical dimensions, observers say.

Even though Shanghai and Beijing continue to be the top market segments, emerging cities such as Chengdu in Sichuan province in Southwest China and Hangzhou in Zhejiang province in East China are grabbing attention, narrowing the gap between them and first-tier cities, they said.