China is considered to be a leading emerging market in the world of business. Because of this, China can offer a sum of opportunities, such as a promising youthful demographic and a bourgeoning middle class, who have an increasing disposable income. However, with this range of opportunities come potential threats also. These may include the problem of facing increased competition from large firms entering China or correctly understanding the Chinese culture in order to compete with local companies. Lego for instance has made extensive use of their USP which is so important to the company that their basic “plastic brick” product has remained unchanged with no need to adapt it to different markets, meaning other firms find it hard to compete against such a competitor. Following this, Lego were able to achieve an impressive 35% growth in Asia within six months in 2013, however this is largely down to the huge number of children within Asia at the present moment in time, meaning they were taking advantage of Chinas beneficial demographics, but this may well change in the future which may result in Lego seeing a decline in demand.
To an extent the opportunities presented by China do outweigh the threats. For example, China can offer a positive range of demographics. This range of demographics can range from a prospective workforce for the future or the chance to target a certain criteria of consumers. In the case of Lego, they targeted Asia’s huge number of children; this benefited them so far as they believe this large target market contributed to their 35% growth in Asia. Another company who has taken advantage of Chinas demographics is the car manufacturer, Jaguar. Chinas bourgeoning middle class attracted Jaguar as there was more demand from these consumers for luxury cars. Because of this, Jaguar’s market sales