Asian Yuppies: Having It All

Nowadays, emerging markets are becoming more and more attractive for multinational companies. Particularly the Asian market, headed by China, represents an enormous potential. Asians consumers are motivated by a complex range of cultural factors and are becoming more interested in pursuing brands to experience their reputation, to stand out from the crowd or to create new trends of a modern high-class lifestyle in purchasing items of established, mostly western brands. Especially the uprising group of young urban professionals, the so-called Yuppies, is eager to spend big amounts of their comparatively high income on upscale brands. Hence, many multinational companies, particularly those selling premium fashion, luxurious accessories or sought-after consumer electronics on the Asian market, recognize a steady double-digit percental increase in sales. Nevertheless, the raising income levels of Asian high earners are still relatively low compared to more developed economies. In fact annual income levels within the peer group of Asian Yuppies living in tier one metropolises reached in 1999 from $ 12.000 in Thailand to $ 18.000 in Taiwan to about $ 35.000 in Korea and China. Moreover housing costs throughout the Asian cities are comparatively high. This is why not every Asian Yuppie is able to spend excessively, and young professionals generally stay with their parents even after starting work and beyond. Consequently, this segment of the Asian yuppies cannot be considered as homogenously, since some are able to spend on expensive upscale brands and others have to focus on middle class brands, offering products that pretend to be high class.
Thus, the potential of the Asian market appears to be an attractive and challenging field to a wide range of companies. However, entering a new market is not trivial; strategies must be established according to the market and the target group to provide a distinguished marketing mix. The Asian market is composed by many