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stainedglasseye t1_jdecncf wrote

One thing I don’t understand, maybe someone with more knowledge on the subject could explain. From the article:

> they’re still hopeful that they can bring their products to the U.S. — the only consumer market in the world larger than China.

How is it that China has over four times the population but a smaller consumer market? Is this just some very specific definition or am I missing something?

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RobotCatCo t1_jdeezz0 wrote

According to world bank in 2022 the US consumer market is bigger than China + EU + Japan put together (converted to USD). A lot of Chinese people are still relatively poor. Spending/saving habits are quite different between Americans and Chinese too.

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stainedglasseye t1_jdefotr wrote

That makes sense, but is still kind of mind boggling. Thanks!

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[deleted] t1_jdhx77k wrote

I’m no expert and my speculation might be worthless here, but I would imagine the health of a “consumer market” probably correlates with how much money the average person spends on things they want rather than need. Not to say that doesn’t happen outside the US (that’d be quite the ludacris statement), but the US citizens do spend a lot of money of a lot of stuff.

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WetBowserBones t1_jdg1eez wrote

It starts making more sense when you realize the US is the third most populous country in the world and also far and away the richest country.

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