Battle for China's Good-Enough Market

A critical new battleground is emerging in China: It's the "good-enough" market segment--home of reliable-enough products at low-enough prices to attract the cream of the country's fast-growing cohort of mid-level consumers. Traditionally, foreign multinationals have dominated China's premium segment, while a plethora of domestic companies have served the low end, often unprofitably. But as middle-class buying power increases, and the tolerance for high markups at the top end wanes, the middle market is growing quickly. Thriving in a market so big is clearly important in itself. But, argue Bain chairman Gadiesh and Bain partners Leung and Vestring, competition in this particular arena has more far-reaching implications. Companies that flourish in China's middle market today are learning valuable lessons they need to compete worldwide: multinationals are discovering how to focus products downscale to break out of the premium tier, and domestic firms are building scale and marketing expertise to move up. Both are positioning themselves to export their China offerings to other large emerging markets such as India and Brazil--and, after that, to the developed markets. Ultimately, the authors warn, the good-enough space, where multinationals and Chinese firms are going head-to-head, is the one from which the world's leading companies will emerge. The authors describe three strategies for entering and prevailing in this strategically vital space. Multinationals can attack domestic players from above, Chinese firms operating in the low end can burrow up from below, and both can acquire their way into it. The experiences of such players as Colgate-Palmolive, GM, GE, Huawei Technologies, Haier, and Ningbo Bird show how challenging it is to gain a foothold in the middle market but also how much potential there is to use it as a springboard for global expansion.

• Foreign investment
• Emerging markets
• Globalization
• Multinational corporations