Clothing firms must develop brands to boost sales

Editor's note: People's Daily's overseas edition recently published a set of data on clothing consumption, which, among other things, show that since the fourth quarter of 2017, the sale of different kinds of clothing has declined to varying degrees. The report also asked whether domestic consumers no longer like to buy clothes. 21st Century Business Herald comments:

The data showed 54.06 billion pieces of clothing were sold in China last year, 17.85 billion pieces fewer than the 71.91 billion pieces in 2017, which means an average reduction of 12 pieces of clothing per person.

Yet the per capita clothing expenditure in 2018 increased to 1,289 yuan ($201), up 4.1 percent year-on-year, 1.2 percentage points higher than the previous year's growth. Which means the increase in clothing prices may be responsible for the growth in people's total clothing consumption despite people buying fewer pieces of clothing. National Bureau of Statistics data show clothing accounted for 6.5 percent of people's total consumer spending in 2018, down 0.3 percentage points year-on-year.