Business 2.0:
According to Goldman Sachs, in the next decade, more than 800 million people in China, India, Russia, and Brazil will qualify as middle class - meaning they will earn more than $3,000 per year.
To put the figure in context, that’s more than the combined population of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. These ambitious, well-educated workers represent both a threat and an opportunity for corporate America.
On the one hand, thanks to global competition, they’re bringing brutal cost pressure to bear on U.S. products. Yet at the same time, these newly affluent consumers have money to spend - more than $1 trillion a year, according to most estimates - and they generally aspire to own American brands and other high-quality imports.
They’re looking forward to enjoying a more comfortable way of life, and huge opportunities await the global firms that figure out how to deliver that at a price these workers can afford.
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