WHAT'S NEXT?: Technology will become the new sales assistant, always on, always friendly, always delivering. Consumers will co-create and create products to their exact needs. Brands will have to focus on seizing mobile moments on apps that already have consumer's attention. Instantly explore below how lifestyles, buying behaviors and attitudes are changing and where you fall short in the battle to win consumers hearts and minds.

• [New] 2020 will see global consumer spending on oil set to fall below the amount spent on electricity for the first time.
• [New] Consumer sentiment is falling in Germany,and per capita, disposable income is expected to decline by 5.7% in real terms in 2020.
• [New] Kenya's Organic Consumers Alliance wants to ban use of all GMOs and hopes to scare farmers, consumer and Kenyan regulators into compliance.
• [New] Nearly two-thirds of passenger-kilometers travelled in China by 2040 will be in self-driving vehicles, generating two trillion U.S. dollars in combined revenues from mobility services and sales of autonomous cars.
• [New] Analysts expect diesel demand in China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, to hit a record in 2020 powered by trucking activity.
• Oil demand fell by 6% (6 mb/d) in 2020 Q1, and the International Energy Agency anticipates it will fall by 23% (23 mb/d) in 2020 Q2, as a growing number of countries have put in place mitigation measures, particularly the United States (the largest consumer of oil).
• Germany, Europe's largest coal consumer, announced plans to phase out its coal plants - but not until 2038, even though the average age of the German plants is about 30 years.
• One target of UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 Sustainable Consumption and Production is to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses, by 2030.
• The Chinese government is launching infrastructure projects and taking measures to boost consumer and business spending, some of which will lift resource commodity usage.
• While goal 12 sets to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels by 2030, CPF aims for zero food loss in the production line and food waste throughout the supply chain in Thailand.
• The adoption of a more conscious approach to fashion consumption, changes in consumer behavior during use and reuse, and the introduction by brands of radically new business models could contribute 347 million metric tons of emission abatement in 2030.
• Over the coming decade we will need bold and ambitious spatial plans to reshape the built environment, helping to reduce the need to travel, and maximising the use of walking, cycling, public transport and shared mobility.
• While Goal 12 sets to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels by 2030, CPF targets to achieve zero food loss in the production line and food waste throughout the supply chain in Thailand and overseas in 2030.
• Business shutdowns and job losses in 2020 have damaged the U.S. economy and consumer confidence so badly it could be three or four years before auto sales recover to pre-pandemic levels.
• Global oil demand is expected to be 91.9 million b/d in 2020, the first downgrade in several months, reflecting the stalling of mobility as the number of Covid-19 cases remains high [lead by] weakness in the aviation sector.
• The level of consumer confidence, the weak economic outlook as well as the resurgence in COVID-19 cases will contribute to the U.S. economy remaining in recession territory in the near term.
• US consumer sentiment was steady in mid-August, though consumers anticipated bad economic times to persist not only in the year ahead and many expect no return to a period of uninterrupted growth over the next five years.
• We see a huge opportunity for consumer lending in India with estimations reaching up to $1 trillion dollars in digital lending by 2023.
• Australian recovery in consumption has lagged the recovery in industrial production and ongoing weakness in consumer demand presents a downside risk to growth in the second half of the year.
• One of the biggest shifts in Chinese consumer behavior has been from the search, pay, and leave model of traditional ecommerce to social commerce.
• Incorporating future mobility thinking into strategic investment planning is vital for sub-national transport bodies as the nature and methods of travel will change greatly over the coming years.
• While India is the world's second largest consumer of coal, and annually imports 247m tonnes, costing more than $20bn (£15bn), India's electricity demand is forecast to fall by up to 15% over the next five years due to the economic reverberations of Covid-19.

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Last updated: 24 September 2020