By 2020 Brazil should be even a greater dictator of consumer tastes in Latin America than today thanks to the growth of consumption, boosted by urban expansion and the middle class, as well as new financial measures. That's what the report of the European institution Euromonitor issued last week tell us.
According to the study, Brazil is living the largest structural change of its history and is living a transformation that generates an impact on consumer behavior. The factors that contributed and are going to continue allowing the country to grow are: the greater number of youths, the greater and easier access to credit, the growth of a class with greater buying power, higher salaries and more formal work posts.
The diversity in supply of products to consumers, the greater exports and the recent expansion of Brazilian companies in Latin America should also make way for a growing and more complex consumer market. Up to 2020, the report shows that the structural change in the country should have developed new tendencies and consumer habits, in an economy that is more urban and sophisticated.
Even in a country in which the majority of the population is young, the concern with health and with body care should play an important part in new consumer tendencies. The sports market should also grow, as Brazilians are greatly concerned with their physical fitness.
With the growing urban population, there should also be new needs by new consumer groups, which will come closer to other races and cultures. Currently, whites are the majority in the country, followed by browns (pardos), and the forecast is for the Afro-Brazilian, Asian and Indian communities, which currently have a marginal position, to grow by 2020, specially in large cities. The food, beverage, entertainment, shoe and garment and cosmetics sectors should not be affected by greater consumer diversity.
The expansion of new technologies in Brazil is also contributing to speed up the rhythm of consumption in Brazil when compared to the rest of Latin America. Figures disclosed by the Euromonitor show that Internet retail growth, between 2007 and 2008, was 37.1%. In December 2008, according to the Ibope, around 11.6 million Brazilians visited or wrote on blogs, and the figure should triple by 2010.
According to the report, studies by universities and consultancy companies show that in 2020 new forms of contact, like networking among individuals, the affinity for state-of-the-art technology, its growing use in daily life and greater use of computer services should define the identity of consumers over the next ten years, in a more profound way than in developed countries.
The report concludes that, currently, national companies supply the needs of consumers and export throughout Latin America, which causes Brazilians to dictate consumer tendencies throughout the region.
Anba
