Wall Street Journal: Look Beyond India’s ‘Poor Man’s’ Market
Monday, January 30, 2012
First there was the bottom of the pyramid. And now there’s the global emerging middle class, or as consulting firm PwC puts it, the “Next 4 Billion.”
Seeing the slowdown in the developed economies, companies with global businesses should creates goods and services for the emerging middle class across the developing world to grow their business, PwC says in a new report.
PwC defines the “Next 4 Billion” as countries that have an average annual per capita income that ranges between $1,000 and $4,000, and that, together, are home to four billion people – or more than half of the current global population of 7 billion. Apart from India and China, this group includes Indonesia and countries in Latin America and Africa.
Globally, about 2.3 billion people are currently in this market segment and it’s only going to get bigger, thanks to high birth rates and above-average economic growth in many countries in the group. The report says that it will represent a combined annual market in excess of $6 trillion by 2021.
