One of the most impressive and interesting things about modern China is its lightning-fast development. The sheer size of its population means that if a trend catches on, it’s sure to be a success. So what does 2011 have in store when it comes to fads and fashions? Here are eight trends that we think will be hot this year.

1) Beer
Think of drinking in China and the first thing that springs to mind will probably be whiskey with green tea mixers; either that, or weak, watery Tsingtao. Neither bode particularly well for the nation’s beer industry, but due to sheer numbers, China actually is the largest beer consumer in the world. The demand for decent beer is getting so large that Carlsberg has started to invest more heavily in its Chongqing brewery. Kirin has recently bought the Qiandaohu brewery in Hangzhou, and according to a recent report into consumer trends by PriceWaterhouseCooper, China will account for half of the world’s demand for beer within the next 10 years.

 

2) Apple
China’s love affair with Apple looks set to continue into 2011 if recent reports are anything to go by. Not content with two stores in both Shanghai and Beijing, Apple plan to open the largest Chinese shop yet, on Shanghai’s Nanjing Lu. The original idea was to open 25 stores across China over the next few years, but Apple are concentrating on developing a smaller number of larger stores to cope with customer demand. Each of the current four shops attracts four times the customer traffic as their American counterparts, with up to 40,000 people crossing the portals each day. The popularity of iPhones are partly responsible for Apple’s boom in China.

3) Social Networking
The unmistakeable and ubiquitous chirp of QQ is proof of the abiding popularity of social networking in China. Facebook clones like Ren Ren and Kaixin are attracting more and more users, and a relatively new kid on the block looks set to rule the roost in 2011. Twitter lookalike Sina Weibo (t.sina.com.cn) was set up back in August 2009 by China’s largest web portal, Sina. It has gradually grown in members to 80 million, with 10 million new accounts created each month. Sina predicts that the microblogging site will have accrued 150 million users by the end of this year.

4) Blogging
With so many netizens out there airing their views, it’s no wonder that China has spawned some incredibly popular bloggers. The king of the castle is Han Han (韩寒) whose blog (blog.sina.com.cn/twocold) has had 200 million hits since 2006. The charismatic 27-year-old is a novelist, rally driver, singer and entrepreneur, and has wooed the domestic blogosphere with his online musings. Another popular blogger is actress Xu Jinglei, who was one of the trailblazers of the genre. As early as 2005, her blog had attracted 10 million visitors. Artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s popular blog has recently been shut down, so the blogosphere is in need of some fresh talent. Watch this space.

Photo: skyshoponline.net

5) E-commerce
With one third of China’s 420 million-strong web community using the net for shopping, the e-commerce sector is a force to be reckoned with. If last year is anything to go by, 2011 will see an even greater surge in numbers. In the first half of 2010, internet sales grew by 60% from 2010. Taobao is still the most popular web shopping portal (its new supermarket service looks to swell its success even further) but new enterprises are cropping up all the time, like ShoppingLu.com – China’s first e-commerce site aimed at foreigners – which launched in September 2010.

6) Hypermarkets
As much as Chinese people love to buy online, they remain loyal to bricks-and-mortar shops. Foreign hypermarket chains look to build on their current success with new branches across the country. Walmart and Carrefour already have a strong presence, with 180 and 160 stores respectively, and both hope to open a further 12 to 20 stores over the course of 2011. Their business model of accepting initial losses to gain market share seems to be paying off.

7) Smartphones
The sight of people chatting, emailing and social networking on Androids, Blackberries and iPhones may not be an unusual sight in China’s big cities, but the smartphone craze is set to spread into rural areas 2011. The growth of cloud computing (whereby files are stored on a central server for easy access from portable devices) means that more people will be able to work (and play) with smartphones.

8) Wild words
If you’ve ever heard or read the word “ungeilivable” and wondered what it meant, you have witnessed a phenomenon that spread across the web in 2010. Made up of the Mandarin slang 给力 (gei li) meaning ‘great’ or ‘amazing’, “geilivable” was coined as an English-Chinese fusion, i.e. “Yao Ming is a great player. He’s geilivable.” This spawned the opposite, i.e. “I can’t believe he missed that shot… Ungeilivable.” Other slang word hybrids include “togayther” to describe a homosexual relationship, and “newbility” from 牛逼 (niubi). No doubt 2011 will see a fresh crop of inventive and colourful ‘net slang’.

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: what’s hot China 2011 2011 trends China hottest trends China