Luxury consumption has smitten 160 million Chinese mostly professionals, celebrities and entrepreneurs making it the world’s third biggest luxury good consumer. By 2015, China’s expected to surpass Japan and the US and become the biggest luxury market in the world with 11.5 billion US dollars in sales and 29 percent of the world’s total consumption. Has the age of luxury really arrived in China?   According to a recent report of Ernst & Young, China’s luxury good consumers have reached 13 percent of the total population mostly professionals aged between 25 to 50, celebrities, and business owners, 10 to 13 million of them are very active buyers of luxury items. The heightened flare for conspicuous consumption has made China the world’s third most luxurious consumer contributing 12 percent to global sales volume according to Goldman Sachs.      The age of luxury in China   China’s enchantment with prominent logos has been driven by new attitudes towards luxury by the “new rich”.    Sino Monitor’s report on China consumer behavior and lifestyle categorized “new rich” as those households with annual income 80,000 yuan (10000 US dollars) or above in first-tier cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou; and those with 60,000 yuan (7500 US dollars) income in second-tier cities such as Nanjing, Wuhan and Chongqing. These consumers composed only 5.1 percent of the total urban population but possess the highest buying power.    Project Manager Zhu Chuanyin of Sino Monitor highlights the strength of China’s nascent luxury market.   Increasing brand consciousness despite uneven purchasing power is evident as 47.5 percent of the interviewees think that they need luxury items and 61.8 percent are willing to spend more to buy these items.   Dr. Gao Lin, a scholar from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University explained the wave of luxury consumption in China has been driven externally by maturing western markets and internally by the need for ostentatious display of newly acquired wealth among local Chinese.   Ownership of luxury products provides a way for the new rich to flaunt their status and to gain social recognition. Zhu commented that often this market segment are the younger set who are more inclined to copy lifestyles in developed countries and driven by material accomplishment.   “Such mentality and the relatively young market speak of the immaturity of China’s luxury products market,” Gao added. “Growth among Chinese luxury consumers however may not be as fast as expected considering the high mainland prices and the generally limited buying power.  Proliferation of counterfeit products also obstructs the normal market operation.”   China Youth Daily