The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies

Consumers in Emerging Economies

SHARAD AGARWAL and M. J. XAVIER

Indian Institute of Management Ranchi, India

DOI: 10.1002/9781118989463.wbeccs258

Emerging economies are nations with social or business activities in the process of rapid growth and industrialization. This rapid growth and development have led to the increase in income of the residents of these countries, which in turn has led to a splurge in consumption among the populations of these nations.

Emerging economies commonly refer to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, Indian, and China) and has more recently included MIKT countries (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey). According a report by the World Bank (Global Development Horizons 2011), BRIC countries plus South Korea and Indonesia will lead the world's economy by 2025 with more than half of all global growth, which makes it imperative to study them from the consumption perspective in order to understand and analyze the consumer habits and patterns in these economies. In this entry, we will focus on consumer patterns from an Indian perspective.

Since the early 2000s, the Chinese economy has experienced phenomenal growth, which has helped it to become the second largest economy in the world next only to the mighty United States. As projected by Goldman Sachs (quoted in Chen et al. 2012) and depicted in Table 1, the average GDP growth expected by India and China between 2020 and 2025 is around 7.7 and 6.6 percent respectively; the advanced economies of the ...