SOURCE / ECONOMY
Consumption industry shares surge, propelled by strong Spring Festival spending
Published: Feb 17, 2021 10:48 PM

People wait in line outside a Burberry store in the Badaling Outlets shopping plaza on Saturday. The global luxury market has been hit hard amid the COVID-19 epidemic, but the consumption of luxury goods in China has gone up. China's luxury sales last year rose by 48 percent to around 350 billion yuan ($54 billion), according to media reports. Photo: Li Hao/GT



Consumption-related stocks climbed on Wednesday in Hong Kong, propelled by strong spending from the Spring Festival holiday, including e-commerce and the record-breaking Chinese mainland box office.

Some of the biggest e-commerce companies saw their stock prices soar in Hong Kong on Wednesday, such as JD.com, which rose more than 7 percent.

The rising consumption-related stocks were driven by the robust spending during the festival season. According to media reports, 7fresh, an online grocery chain owned by JD.com, saw its grocery sales rise by 80 percent year-on-year. On Freshippo, Alibaba's grocery chain, online bookings for New Year's Eve dinners were four times the number from last year. 

Shares in the tourism sector also jumped on Wednesday. WWPKG Holdings, a tour operator company, saw its price gain more than 70 percent. The price of Tongcheng-Elong Holdings, a travel service platform, jumped more than 15 percent on Wednesday.

China's tourism sector recovered during the Spring Festival, with total bookings for tourist attractions up 105 percent in the first four days of the holiday, compared with the previous week.

Films and entertainment industry shares also rose in Hong Kong thanks to the strong domestic box office. Maoyan Entertainment, an online film platform, closed 5.06 percent higher on Wednesday. 

Shi Wenxue, a Beijing-based film critic and industry analyst, told the Global Times that so far the nation's box office revenue has "far exceeded" his expectations, and cinemas and production companies can expect a good year in 2021. 

"The total box office of this Spring Festival broke the 5 billion yuan ($774.17 million) estimate by far," Shi said. "It was mostly down to the effective containment of the pandemic, and the move by cinemas to put on more screenings with a 50-percent cap on house capacity."

Good quality domestic films released this year, including comedy Hi, Mom and fantasy thriller A Writer's Odyssey, have also made up for the absence of foreign blockbuster productions for the Spring Festival.