75% of Pinoy millennials spend on luxury goods

MANILA, Philippines - Millennials (18-29 years old) in China are the biggest purchasers of luxury goods in Asia Pacific, followed by South Korea and Hong Kong, according to a survey conducted by MasterCard. They plan to spend close to double the Asia Pacific average on luxury goods in the next year.

MasterCard said the most popular luxury items are high-end tech gadgets, with 25 percent of millennials in Asia Pacific planning to buy an item such as a smart phone or tablet computer in the next year. This is followed by designer clothes and leather goods (17 percent) and jewellery (17 percent).

In the Philippines, jewellery is the most popular luxury items bought by one-fifth of millennials and 18 percent  intends to buy more. Filipino millennials average budget for luxury shopping is about $1,000 or about P46,000.  The survey also disclosed that 75 percent of Filipino millennials spend on luxury items to celebrate special occasions.

Overall, most millennials in the region take approximately a month to consider and research their luxury purchases. More millennials in Asia Pacific (a quarter) buy on impulse than those over thirty (a fifth), MasterCard said.

Meanwhile, over a third of millennials in the region prefer western brands over regional or local, however there is a marked difference across the region.

While more than half of millennial shoppers in China, Vietnam, South Korea and Hong Kong prefer Western brands, the majority in India and Indonesia would rather buy local.

 Alternatively, Filipinos almost equally patronize both local and western brands.  The top motivations for selecting luxury brands are reliability of quality and value for money. Cash payment (61 percent)  is most common among Filipinos and credit card use (21 percent) was observed to be significantly declining.

When choosing where to buy luxury goods from, the majority of millennials, still prefer purchasing from local brick and mortar stores (64 percent), instead of local e-commerce sites (nine percent). Meanwhile a fifth prefer to buy luxury items in-store when travelling overseas, this is especially true of Chinese millennials, 51 percent of whom are most likely to buy a luxury item in-store while travelling.  Among Filipino millennials, 58 percent prefer to shop in local in-stores on sale and 7 percent online. About half of those who buy luxury goods online buy on websites that offer discounts.

The results are based on interviews that took place between between May and June with 2,272 millennials (18-29 years old) across 14 markets in Asia Pacific.