The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Luxury firms pin hopes on China Posted: 24 Dec 2012 11:47 PM PST  The Louis Vuitton 'maison' store in Shanghai. – AFP pic For the 27-year-old exhibition planner, accessories such as Dior handbags, Chanel perfume and necklaces by French jewellery house Van Cleef & Arpels are daily fashion essentials. "Luxury goods have become a necessary part of my life," said Ren, who earns about US$960 (RM2,450) a month in salary but gets virtually unlimited financial backup from her wealthy mother, a successful businesswoman. "Once you start buying them, it would be hard to step down to lower-end products," she said. Free-spending Chinese consumers such as Ren have so far proven a blessing to big name labels trying to buck global woes. Sales of personal luxury goods in mainland China surged a spectacular 56 per cent last year to US$19 billion, after a 35 per cent climb in 2010, data from CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets showed. In comparison, the world economy grew just 2.7 per cent last year. The investment group expects China's luxury market growth to slow in the rest of this decade, but still predicts it to average an impressive 20 per cent a year over the period. Chinese consumers are now the world's biggest buyers of luxury merchandise, according to a report last week by management consultancy McKinsey, while another consulting firm, Bain and Company, found they account for a quarter of all such purchases globally. This year growth has been restricted by slowing expansion in the Chinese economy and repressed gift-giving among and between officials and businessmen—a key element of building relationships, even at middle and lower levels. The habit remains widespread, but has been affected by mounting scrutiny of corruption and stepped-up government crackdowns, along with political uncertainties linked to the country's once-a-decade leadership transition. But global luxury brands still see plenty of long-term potential in the world's second-largest economy, pinning their hopes on China's rising middle class as Europe slogs through its debt crisis, US growth remains weak and Japan's economy fails to gain traction. French luxury icon Louis Vuitton launched its first China Maison in July, a four-storey megastore selling jewellery, leather goods, clothing and other products in the commercial hub of Shanghai—its biggest anywhere. In November New York-based Coach unveiled a China-language version of its official Internet store to ride the country's online shopping wave. PPR, the French owner of brands including Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, announced this month that it had acquired a majority stake in rising Chinese luxury jewellery brand Qeelin for an undisclosed amount. Easing domestic luxury sales this year has prompted warnings that the lightning growth rates of previous years are unlikely to be sustainable given China's economic slowdown and as the market matures. Over the past three and a half decades China has grown nearly 10 per cent a year, but Beijing has cut its target to 7.0 per cent annually for the five years through 2015 as it tries to reduce reliance on exports and have domestic consumers play a bigger role. "Luxury consumers do not see the future of their economy as 'cloudless' as it was a few years ago," said Elan Shou, China managing director of Ruder Finn Public Relations. As visa restrictions ease, more mainland Chinese consumers are also making their luxury acquisitions overseas to take advantage of cheaper prices, lower purchase taxes and China's strengthening yuan currency. But Chinese households with annual post-tax income of US$16,000-US$34,000 are expected to grow 12-fold in just a decade, from fewer than 14 million in 2010 to 167 million by 2020, according to a previous report by McKinsey. "There is a lot of room for optimism because the fundamentals of rising affluence remain in place," Claudia D'Arpizio, a partner with Bain & Company, told AFP. And as Chinese consumers' tastes diversify, the market is likely to become more nuanced. Kevin Liu, a 25-year-old marketing executive in Beijing, said he only buys less pricey niche products for himself. But when it comes to friends' weddings, goods like Gucci purses are de rigeur. "I think that is a rational spending pattern," he said. – AFP-Relaxnews |
| Dystextia – Gibberish texts sound stroke alarm Posted: 24 Dec 2012 07:25 PM PST  The authors describe the phenomenon as 'dystextia', which is the word used by other doctors in an earlier case involving a migraine, and symptoms of a stroke diagnosed for other reasons. – Reuters pic NEW YORK, Dec 25 – Imagine you were a devoted husband, waiting to hear from your wife about her due date after a visit to the obstetrician, and you saw these on your phone: "every where thinging days nighing" "Some is where!" That's what happened last December to a Boston-area man, who knew that autocorrect - known for its bizarre replacements - was turned off on his 11-week-pregnant wife's phone. You'd probably be tempted to make sure your wife, 25, got to the emergency room. When she did, doctors noted several signs of a stroke, including disorientation, inability to use her right arm and leg properly and some difficulty speaking. A magnetic resonance imaging scan - MRI - revealed that part of the woman's brain wasn't getting enough blood, clinching the diagnosis. Fortunately, her symptoms went away quickly, and the rest of the pregnancy went just fine after she went home from the hospital on low-dose blood thinners. The case, say three doctors from Boston's Harvard Medical School who reported it online today in the Archives of Neurology, suggests that "the growing digital record will likely become an increasingly important means of identifying neurologic disease, particularly in patient populations that rely more heavily on written rather than spoken communication." The authors describe the phenomenon as "dystextia," which is the word used by other doctors in an earlier case involving a migraine, and symptoms of a stroke diagnosed for other reasons. "In her case, the first evidence of language difficulties came from her unintelligible texts," one of the report's authors, Dr. Joshua Klein, told Reuters Health by email. Strokes are rare in women aged 15 to 34, with about 11,000 per year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published last year. Dr Sean Savitz, who directs the stroke program at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, said he has seen a few patients who sent emails suggesting they were having difficulty with language, a condition known as aphasia. Such clues usually come with other information however. In this case, for example, the patient's obstetrician's office later remembered that she had trouble filling out a form. And they might have caught the language difficulty earlier had the woman not had a weak voice, thanks to a recent upper respiratory infection. "So, this case report per se does not indicate to me if dystextia is going to be more common to pick up strokes," Savitz told Reuters Health by email, "but I do think it will be a valuable addition to the collection of information that neurologists should obtain when taking a history." "The main stroke warning signs with respect to texting would be unintelligible language output, or problems reading or comprehending texts," said Klein. "Many smartphones have an 'autocorrect' function which can introduce erroneous word substitutions, giving the impression of a language disorder." Autocorrect, said Savitz, a professor of neurology, can confuse matters - even for doctors. "I have often joked with my colleagues when using the dictation of the smartphone, that it gives me an aphasia," he said. "Potential for lots of false positives!" – Reuters |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Features To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan