Despite the well-publicized slowdown in economic growth, overall consumer sentiment in China can still be described as cautiously optimistic. More precisely, caution characterizes the lower end of the consumer market, while optimism envelops the high end.

China, in other words, has become a twospeed consumer market. The optimistic,“high-speed” consumer market disproportionately consists of middle- to upper-middle-class and affluent households. These consumers also make up the bulk of the digital class of active online shoppers. Today, high-speed consumers generate about $1.7 trillion of the $3.2 trillion in urban consumption anticipated for 2015.

With rising incomes pushing more households into the middle class and above, the number of high-speed households will rise from 81 million today to 142 million in 2020, and they will generate about $3.8 trillion of the $5.6 trillion in total urban consumption. As their ranks swell and their incomes rise, these households will likely be responsible for nearly 90 percent of the increase in consumption during this period.