UPM-Biofore-Magazine-2-2017-ENG

Asian consumers in pole position

By 2030, the focus of the global consumer marketplace will have shifted to Asia and the middle class of its growing cities. Products and services will become digital, but demand will also grow in another rising segment: renewable biomaterials.

I n 2030, as envisioned by futurologists, people will travel in self-driving cars, gyrocopters will handle consumer home deliveries, and sensors integrated into clothing will monitor our well-being. Digital and AI-based technology has developed so rapidly that the future is now difficult to predict even within a timeframe as brief as a few years.

Peter Berg

Senior industry expert Peter Berg fromMcKinsey & Company predicts that consumers in 2030 will have access to a considerable number of products and services that no one today can even imagine. “The fact that just 15 years ago we did not have iPhones or Facebook demonstrates the pace of development quite well.” An expert in global consumer trends in paper and forest products, Berg points out that the general direction is nevertheless clear. “As the world economy shifts its centre of gravity to Asia, so will consumption.” The rising middle class The main driver for global consumption in the coming years will be the growing and increasingly wealthy middle class of Asia and other developing

THE WORLD’S LARGEST CONSUMER MARKET

2015 United States

2030 China India United States Indonesia Japan

China Japan India Russia

Source: Brookings Institution

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