Brazilian Consumer Lifestyles Report - What’s next for consumer spending in this emerging giant

Synopsis
Brazil offers key growth opportunities for marketers of all consumer packaged goods, as a large and young population and growing middle class both adopt western consumption habits and carve out their own, Brazilian, consumption patterns. This report provides an overview of the key changes in Brazilian consumers’ lifestyles, allowing marketers to better target the emerging opportunities in this booming market.,
Scope
Brazil’s economic and demographic profile is analyzed to pin point the most important long-term trends for marketers.

The key changes in consumers’ lifestyles are highlighted, such as the growing numbers of working women and rising car ownership.

The key supermarket and convenience retailers are identified.

The evolution of Brazil’s Food, Beverages, Foodservice and Health & Beauty markets is analyzed, reviewing changes over 2007-2012 and forecast changes up to 2017.

Canadean’s consumer data provides insight into the key motivations driving consumption choices across packaged good markets.
Summary
Why was the report written?
Brazil will be one of the most important markets for consumer packaged goods over the next decades, as a buoyant population become increasingly affluent. However Brazil’s large, young population and the rapid rate of change in lifestyles, discretionary incomes and shopping habits can make it difficult for marketers to identify the key trends driving consumer behavior.

What is the current market landscape and what is changing?
Brazil is still a very young country, but its population is aging rapidly compared to other emerging markets, and will peak in 2042. Meanwhile Brazil’s middle class explosion will stall without new talent, and high levels of income inequality will affect consumer markets. A key opportunity for marketers will be the “floating” class, people who are neither poor nor yet in the middle class.

What are the key drivers behind recent market changes?
More working women, increasing online connectivity and the spread of cars and consumer durables such as freezers will reshape Brazilian society. More working women means there will be greater demand for on-the-go and convenience foods, while growing car ownership rates will boost the expansion of hypermarkets and big-box retailers. Meanwhile Brazilians are already among the heaviest consumers of online content, and the number of mobile and internet subscriptions are increasing. These trends will combine to change not just what Brazilians shop for, but how they shop for it.

What makes this report unique and essential to read?
This report collates data highlighting the key changes in Brazilian lifestyles, providing a clearer picture of the demographic, economic and consumer landscape and allowing marketing tactics and strategy to be updated in order to target the best emerging opportunities in the market.
Reasons To Buy
The growing numbers of working women will slowly reshape Brazilian society, families and consumption habits. More working women means traditional gender roles will evolve as women are both more likely to earn independently, but also have less time for household chores. This will increase demand for convenient products that make cooking and cleaning easier, and increase the number of women looking to eat and drink on-the-go, or in order to relax during or after a long day at work.

It is a given that Brazil’s middle class is growing rapidly – in just 20 years between 1990 and 2010 43.2m new middle class consumers entered the Brazilian economy. But that growth will stall without new talent – Brazil is not currently a key destination for foreign talent and relatively low rates of tertiary enrolment – a strong predictor of the growth of the middle class – are well below that of most other Latin American countries.This disparity can also be seen in income inequality – while continuing to fall there is nonetheless a large gap between rich and poor in Brazil, creating a large number of consumers that are not fully part of Brazil’s new consumer revolution.

Brazil has a transport problem: motorization rates are increasing but so is congestion. At the same time, public transport is often slow, and perceived by disgruntled voters to be expensive and underinvested in. The 2013 protests that have taken place across Brazil have been catalyzed by unhappiness with the transport system.The Brazilian government is acutely aware of this. The future question is how it manages the growth of personal transport and how much it invests in a public transport worthy of Brazil’s status as a leading economy and regional influencer. In turn, these high level decisions will have a major impact on how cars fit into consumer lifestyles, and vice versa.

Despite the proliferation of small supermarket chains across Brazil informal retailing still accounts for just over a third of retail sales. Leading chains such as Carrefour and Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição /Pão de Açúcar have made explicit statements that aggressive expansion is still key to their growth strategy.But it will prove challenging: in October 2013 Walmart shocked observers with its announcement of the closure of 25 stores, preferring to channel its energies into developing its ecommerce offering.

Because convenience retail in Brazil is dominated by forecourt retailers the supermarkets have had so far had little involvement in the market. But Brazil is highly urbanized and the implications of both the trend for smaller households and the rapid aging of the population that will take place in the next 20 years is that penetration of convenience retailing will increase dramatically.As yet, however, convenience remains a secondary priority for expanding retailers, who are preferring to focus on larger formats.