World Data Lab

19/10/2026

Americans feel half as confident as they did in 2019. However, in real terms, they spend 22% more.

The US has company. In 33 of the 41 countries we track, consumers feel worse off than before the pandemic. Only Germany and Czechia actually spend less.

On Thursday 19 November, we present our 11th World Consumer Outlook live in "Crisis, what crisis?". We'll explain why the confidence gap exists and where consumer growth will come from in 2027. You'll also get a first look at our new financial inclusion data.

16:00 CET / 10:00 ET, online and free.

Register: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0zbF3K0

14/10/2026

In 2000, one in four people in Asia's cities belonged to the consumer class. Today it's more than two in three, and by 2040 it will be 85%.

Population tells you how many people live in a city, while the consumer class tells you how many spend more than $13 a day, which is enough to buy beyond the basics.

China's cities got there first, going from 3% in 2000 to 83% today. India's and Indonesia's cities have now reached the level China's had in about 2016, and both pass 80% by 2040.

The growth in consumer demand over the next fifteen years is happening in Asian cities that most companies have not yet put on their list.

Learn more at https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0z4w_r0

01/10/2026

In 2036, 37% of Indian adults will buy online. Split by consumer class, that average covers five different markets.

India's rich (above $130 a day) buy online at 78%, close to Germany's average of 81%. Its vulnerable and poor (under $13 a day) sit at 18%, level with Bangladesh. The three middle classes line up with Vietnam, Brazil and Kenya.

One checkout stack rarely fits a market like that. On 8 October, Wolfgang Fengler and Juan Caballero from World Data Lab join Estelita Hass and Marie-Elise Droga from EBANX to work through the payments data market by market, India included.

8 October | 10:30am EST | 4:30pm CET | 45 min + live Q&A
Free to attend. Registrants get the slides and the recording.
Register: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yLpS80

01/10/2026

Why do Chinese households start saving at just $8 a day, when in the US that threshold is closer to $60? And what would it take for China's 1.4 billion people to spend more?

In this episode of Data Talks, we're joined by Dr. Bert Hofman, a leading expert on East Asia who spent decades at the World Bank and lived and worked in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Bert first arrived in Beijing in 1992, when China's income was around $1,000 per person, and the city streets went dark at night to save energy. He has followed the country's transformation ever since.

The Chinese Consumer: Savings and SpendingWhy do Chinese househol...

29/09/2026

Consumers spend $25 trillion on retail. They spend another $46 trillion on everything else: housing, cars, financial services, restaurants and healthcare.

Groceries make up $11 trillion of the retail total, or 44%.

We split all $71 trillion of consumer spending into 16 categories and forecast each one's share of the wallet to 2036. Seven gain share. Three sit inside retail: groceries, pharmacy and personal care. The other four are services: financial and insurance, restaurants and hotels, doctors and hospitals, and education.

Home furnishings, clothing, alcohol and to***co, recreation and pets, and phones all lose share.

See the full chart on Voronoi: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yH4s40
Download the retail deck from our Future of Retail webinar: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yH4sz0

16/09/2026

Retail has stayed at 35% of consumer spending for the last twenty years.

Join our webinar on 23 September to find out what has kept that share steady.

We'll look at the four macro forces moving consumer demand over the next decade, and at what city-level modelling across 9,000+ cities shows that country data misses.

Register: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0ym3Qk0

15/09/2026

Global retail adds $15 trillion of spending by 2036, growing 4.8% a year.

Three categories grow faster than that average:

Pharmacy and medical goods: 6.0% a year, +$1.7tn
Personal care and jewellery: 5.8% a year, +$1.3tn
Grocery, food and drinks: 5.0% a year, +$6.7tn

Grocery not only clears the retail average but also adds more new spending than the other seven categories on this chart combined.

We break down what this means for category strategy and city-level demand in our webinar, Future of Retail: Navigating Macro Change & City Growth, on 23 September.

Register: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0ykHhj0

14/09/2026

Retail is $25 trillion of what households spend. The other $46 trillion goes to housing, transport, healthcare, services and eating out.

Groceries take $11 trillion of the retail total, close to half. Home and furnishings ($2.8tn) and clothing and footwear ($2.7tn) come next, each about a quarter the size of the grocery basket. Phones and electronics sit at $1.1tn.

Retailers competing for share are competing inside the $25 trillion box. The $46 trillion outside it, rent and fuel and insurance premiums, decides how much of a household budget ever reaches a shop or a checkout page.

We unpack where that spending moves next, and which cities drive the growth, at Future of Retail: Navigating Macro Change & City Growth on 23 September.

Register: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yjfjD0

10/09/2026

Affluent boomers put more of their wallet into healthcare than any other generation.

Hospital services take 1.1 more points of it. Pharmaceuticals take 1.0, social protection 0.9, medical services 0.8. Core boomers show the same pattern on a smaller budget, adding 0.8 points on pharmaceuticals.

Social protection covers care services and support for the elderly, so most of these lines are the direct cost of ageing.

Boomers take that money out of discretionary categories. Restaurants and cafes drop 0.9 points in both classes. Cars drop 0.9 points for affluent boomers, the steepest fall in cars of any generation.

Restaurant groups and car brands courting older consumers now compete with hospital and pharmacy bills for the same wallet.

More at https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0ycGyp0

📊 Chart via Voronoi: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0ycGyq0

08/09/2026

The West held 41% of the world's core consumers in 2000. That share is 18% today and reaches 13% by 2036.

The West's own core class barely moves across those 36 years, from 638 million in 2000 to 642 million in 2036 by way of a 763 million peak in 2020. The global core class more than triples across the same period, from 1.54 billion to 4.85 billion. Almost all of that growth sits in APAC, Latin America and Africa.

Any company using Western core consumer behaviour as the default input for global planning is describing 13% of the segment by 2036.

More in A Tale of Two Consumers: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0y7KX00
Chart on Voronoi: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0y7KW00