As China’s economy slows, consumers are increasingly
turning to domestic luxury products, challenging the dominance of long-established
European brands.
·
Chinese
consumers are increasingly shifting from Western luxury brands to domestic
premium brands across automobiles, jewelry, handbags
and hospitality.
·
Huawei
and JAC Motors’ Maextro S800 has emerged as China’s
best-selling luxury car, competing directly with BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi.
·
Chinese
buyers are attracted by advanced technology features such as self-driving
systems, gesture-controlled doors and smart cabin integration.
·
Domestic
luxury brands are benefiting from rising Chinese cultural confidence and
growing preference for products reflecting local aesthetics and traditions.
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Laopu Gold has rapidly expanded by promoting
traditional Chinese craftsmanship and cultural symbols in high-end jewelry.
·
Chinese
handbag brands such as Songmont and Truuzen are gaining market share with premium quality
products at relatively affordable prices.
·
During
China’s Double Eleven shopping festival, Songmont
overtook Coach as the top-selling handbag brand on Tmall’s premium platform.
·
Domestic
brands are increasingly using authentic storytelling and localized marketing
instead of traditional exclusivity-focused luxury campaigns.
·
Truuzen highlighted female leather factory
workers through podcasts and documentaries to build emotional consumer
connection.
·
Global
luxury companies are facing declining sales in China as domestic competition
intensifies.
·
Richemont
reported a significant decline in China sales, while Porsche plans to close
many dealerships in the country.
·
The
hospitality sector is also witnessing a shift toward culturally immersive
domestic experiences.
·
Songtsam has gained popularity among wealthy
Chinese travelers through Tibetan cultural
experiences and personalized services.
·
The
trend reflects China’s broader transition from a manufacturing economy to a
creator of premium global consumer brands.
After years of driving
a Mercedes-Benz and a BMW, Li Maozai made a choice that
surprised even himself: He bought a Chinese luxury car.
Mr. Li, a partner
at a law firm in the southern Chinese city of Nanchang, chose the Maextro S800, an 18-foot sedan built by Huawei and JAC Motors,
for its sleek lines, elegant design and high-tech features that his German cars
couldn’t match. At $140,000, it wasn’t cheap, but it was much less expensive than
European luxury vehicles.
“This car changed
our old belief that only BMW, Benz and Audi are luxury cars,” Mr. Li said in an
interview.
Powered by devotees
like Mr. Li, the Maextro has rapidly become China’s best-selling
luxury car, outpacing Western rivals. Huawei said one out of every three luxury
cars sold in China in April was a Maextro. It has come
to embody the supercharged rise of Chinese brands across luxury retail — from automobiles
to personal goods and hospitality — steadily squeezing out once-dominant European
labels.
Even as the world’s
second-largest economy contends with a property crisis and sluggish consumer spending,
Chinese shoppers are flocking to Made-in-China luxury brands, drawn by more reasonable
prices, cutting-edge technology and a cultural sensibility finely tuned to local
tastes. The shifting sensibilities have unfolded alongside a rising nationalism
and a deepening pride in the country’s economic ascent in recent decades.
Building on Maextro’s success, Huawei is preparing to release an even pricier
model next month, starting at $220,000. Laopu Gold, a
jewelry brand that incorporates motifs from the Forbidden
City and imperial craftsmanship in its designs, tripled its revenue last year. And
domestic leather handbag labels like Songmont and Truuzen are carving out a foothold as accessible luxury options.
As Chinese consumers
have turned toward homegrown brands, century-old international luxury powerhouses
have struggled. Richemont, the parent company of Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels,
reported a 23 percent sales decline in China last year. Porsche said it would close
nearly half of its dealerships in the country by the end of the year.
“For decades, Western
luxury brands had held the narrative power in the high-end consumer market,” said
David He, a managing partner at BA Capital, a venture capital firm that invests
in retail brands. “Today, Chinese consumers are no longer looking up to Western
culture, but are beginning to look back at ourselves.”
Mr. Li, the Maextro owner, feels little nostalgia for the German luxury
cars he used to drive.
He waxed poetic
about the features of his new car that his old cars never offered: doors that open
and close with a wave of his hand, a storage cabinet that warms his tea and his
favorite feature of all, Huawei’s self-driving system
that pilots itself on highway trips.
There is so much
excitement about the brand that Mr. Li organized activities for the Maextro owners’ association in his home province, Jiangxi, alongside
fellow business owners and professionals.
Laopu Gold, the jewelry
company founded in 2009, has also quickly established itself as a force to be taken
seriously in the luxury space. By reviving heritage gold techniques that emphasize
traditional craftsmanship with prices ranging from $3,000 to millions of dollars,
Laopu generates roughly twice the per-store revenue of
Cartier, according to an HSBC research report.
Mr. He, the venture
capitalist who invested in Laopu Gold in 2023, said the
company’s ascent, driven in part by the surge in gold prices, had been propelled
by a younger generation willing to pay for fine traditional craftsmanship and to
“wear jewelry with symbols of Eastern aesthetics.”
One popular gold
pendant, for example, is made from delicate gold fibers
in the shape of a bottle gourd — a symbol of good luck in Chinese culture.
Perhaps the clearest
sign that Laopu has arrived as a genuine challenger came
from a competitor. Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of LVMH, the world’s largest
luxury group, visited the storefronts of both Laopu Gold
and Songmont, the handbag brand, in Shanghai last year.
Mr. Arnault’s visit
to Songmont was all the more striking given how the brand
has marketed itself as an affordable luxury label, offering minimalist premium leather
bags priced around $500. During last year’s Double Eleven shopping festival, which
is like China’s equivalent of Black Friday, Songmont overtook
Coach as the top-selling handbag brand on Tmall, the premium-tier channel of China’s
biggest shopping platform, Taobao. Truuzen, another homegrown
label, claimed the No. 3 spot.
“We used to be puppets
in the marketing of Western brands,” Cheng Baohua, the founder of Truuzen, said. He said the company’s sales doubled in 2025,
but he thinks it is about more than value-minded shoppers in a cooling economy.
“Over the years, more educated consumers have undergone an ideological awakening,”
he said.
Mr. Cheng said he
believed customers were drawn not only to the product’s quality but to the down-to-earth
ethos the brand has promoted. Last year, rather than promoting exclusivity, Truuzen released a podcast and a documentary that spotlighted
the lives of female workers in leather factories and celebrated the resilience of
ordinary women.
Linda Xie, a public
relations specialist, said in an interview that she considered her Truuzen bag higher quality than her Furla and Coach handbags,
which she said had discolored over time, and that she
carried it to work every day. Another Truuzen bag owner
said the leather rivaled that of her Hermès bag.
A cultural pivot
is also reshaping the hotel sector.
Rather than coveting
stays at global chains with their one-size-fits-all service, 78 percent of high-net-worth
Chinese individuals now prefer “unique cultural experiences” during hotel stays,
according to a 2024 report by the Hurun Research Institute.
One trendy escape
for China’s wealthiest urban dwellers is Songtsam, a hotel
chain founded in 2001 by a Tibetan documentary director. Its name means “paradise”
in Tibetan, and the chain has 20 properties scattered across the tranquil Tibetan
Plateau, pairing stunning views with personalized cultural tours that can run upward
of $10,000 per person.
Frances Li, a marketing
professional who has stayed at Songtsam properties three
times, said these tours were a treat for her. Though the hotel’s facilities may
be less lavish or uniform than those of international chains, the warm, detail-oriented
service from local staff reaches a luxury standard of its own. “At the end of the
trip, I felt healed,” Ms. Li said.
Florence Li, Songtsam’s vice president of international sales and marketing
(and no relation to Frances Li), said the company’s revenue rose 50 percent in 2025,
propelled by surging demand for its tours. Domestic Chinese guests, who made up
only a small fraction of the clientele in its early years, now constitute the majority,
she added.
Ms. Li, who is also
the hotel founder’s daughter, said its success reflected a broader shift among Chinese
travelers, who were not only growing more confident in
local brands but going out of their way to support them.
“It’s not only happening
in the hotel industry,” Ms. Li said. “Even for myself, I’m also very interested
in looking into domestic handbags.”