Trends in Korean Consumer Group Spending

I'm always interested in Korean consumerism...In fact, Korean business is very savvy at looking at their consumer trends.

Korea Herald notes...

Korea's thirty-somethings, most of whom were formerly known as the hip generation-X,( and 20:30ers) were found to be among the heaviest spenders over the past two years, along with those in their fifties.

During the first three quarters of this year, the propensity to spend for Koreans in their thirties rose 1.5 to 1.6 percentage points from the same period in 2003 when consumer spending began to pick up, the National Statistical Office reports.

The propensity to spend indicates the ratio of expenditure against disposable income at domestic households.

Spending among the Gen-xers trailed only the twenties age group, which was found to be the most aggressive spenders. Their propensity to spend was up more than 3 percentage points from the same period two years earlier.

As Koreans who spent their teens in the late 1980s and early 1990s, those in their early thirties were dubbed the Generation X ( or 20:30ers) and carve out a contrasting image from the so-called 386 generation that represent the student leftist movement - mostly in their late thirties and early forties. (These people were born in the 1960s, went to college in the 1980s)

The Gen-xers symbolized a dramatic shift in Koreans who were seen to be increasingly rejecting traditional values. That age group was also expected to be the heaviest spenders in the following years.