During the National Day holiday, Guangdong delivered impressive consumption results. Monitoring data released by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce shows that combined retail sales and catering revenue grew 9% year-on-year during the holiday period.
From October 1 to 6, the province's trade-in program for consumer goods verified and wrote off 384 million yuan in subsidy funds, a sharp year-on-year increase of 228.7%, directly driving 3.371 billion yuan in sales, up 124.9% year-on-year. Among these, from October 1 to 3, subsidy write-offs for digital product purchases surged more than fourfold year-on-year, driving 618 million yuan in sales, a three-point-three-fold year-on-year increase, making it the category with the greatest growth elasticity under this round of policy.
Policy Support and Market Supply Upgraded Simultaneously
On the policy side, efforts continued to intensify. The National Development and Reform Commission issued the fourth batch of 62.5 billion yuan in ultra-long-term special government bond funds ahead of the dual festivals, bringing the full-year total of 250 billion yuan fully into place. On the market side, supply was upgraded in tandem. Three major new commercial landmarks opened in a concentrated period: Guangzhou Bai'etan MIXC, Julong Bay Taikoo Li, and Foshan MIXC World. These formed a synergistic effect with mature commercial districts such as Tianhe Road, where business revenue grew 23.7% year-on-year.
Growth in Digital Product Consumption
Data shows that during the first six days of the National Day holiday, the province's trade-in program for consumer goods verified and wrote off 384 million yuan in subsidy funds, directly driving 3.371 billion yuan in sales.
Song Xiangqing, vice president of the China Commercial Economics Society, told reporters that compared with previous holiday policies, this round of policy has markedly improved in precision and directness. On one hand, the subsidy catalog has proactively tilted toward categories with shorter replacement cycles and stronger upgrade willingness, such as digital products and smart hardware, rather than overly concentrating on traditional durable goods. On the other hand, through a triple stacking of national subsidies, provincial subsidies, and merchant discounts, along with optimized online and offline instant purchase-and-redemption processes, intermediate obstacles have been reduced, allowing policy benefits to reach end consumers more quickly. This represents a shift from broad, scattered stimulus toward structural guidance anchored to the direction of consumption upgrading.
Wang Chunjuan, a professor at the Beijing International Business Research Base and secretary-general of the Time-Honored Brand Professional Committee of the Chinese Commercial History Society, also told reporters that the improved precision of this round of policy is reflected in three dimensions. First, funds were delivered early, fully allocated before the National Day consumption peak, stabilizing policy expectations for both enterprises and consumers and facilitating advance consumption planning. Second, category coverage was broadened, no longer limited to traditional big-ticket items such as automobiles and home appliances, but extended to digital smart products, matching residents' digital consumption upgrading needs. Third, the redemption process was simplified, with subsidy write-offs landing faster, reducing intermediate steps and lowering consumers' application costs.
In Guangdong's current round of trade-in programs, the growth of digital products is particularly noteworthy. From October 1 to 3, the province's subsidy write-off amount for digital products grew more than fourfold year-on-year, far outpacing traditional categories such as home appliances and automobiles.
"The biggest difference between digital products and traditional durable consumer goods is the replacement cycle," said Huo Hongyi, dean of the Asia-Pacific Social Innovation Research Institute and managing director of Hong Kong Qingyuan Capital, in an analysis for reporters. "Consumers typically need to use products like cars, refrigerators, and washing machines for many years before considering replacement, but for digital products like phones, tablets, and smartwatches, as functions such as artificial intelligence, imaging technology, and smart interaction continue to upgrade, consumers are more easily motivated to upgrade."
"Digital products are transforming from a single tool into an important gateway to personal digital life. The reason consumers buy digital products is no longer just that the device is old, but that they want to gain a new user experience," he further noted.
Song Xiangqing added: "It coincides with the concentrated launch of autumn new products, releasing pent-up upgrade demand. Guangdong itself is a national highland for digital distribution and consumption, with high offline store density, concentrated brand resources, and a large young consumer base. This makes digital products less constrained by large budgets and home decoration cycles compared with cars and home appliances, allowing subsidies to be converted into actual orders more quickly."
New Commercial Landmarks Debut in Concentration
On the eve of the National Day holiday, three major new commercial landmarks debuted in concentration: Guangzhou Bai'etan MIXC, Julong Bay Taikoo Li, and Foshan MIXC World, forming a same-city competition and cooperation pattern with Guangzhou's Tianhe Road commercial district. However, Tianhe Road did not lose its luster due to diversion from the new landmarks, with business revenue growing 23.7% year-on-year during the National Day period.
"Urban commerce is shifting from competition between individual shopping malls to competition between different consumption scenarios," Huo Hongyi pointed out. "In the past, when a city opened a large new shopping center, everyone first worried about whether it would take away foot traffic from existing commercial districts. But now the purpose of consumers visiting shopping malls has changed. Some people go for shopping, some for dining, some to see exhibitions or participate in events, and others may simply want to experience a new urban space."
He believes that new commercial landmarks do not necessarily weaken traditional commercial districts. Instead, they may attract more consumers to the city, expanding the overall consumption scale of the entire city.
Song Xiangqing summarized this relationship as a "multi-core pattern of differentiated complementarity and overall market expansion." New landmarks capture high-end and trendsetting incremental foot traffic through first-store economies, art exhibitions, and riverside immersive experiences, while Tianhe Road holds its base with long-accumulated brand depth, three-dimensional transportation advantages, and mature integrated operations linking commerce, tourism, culture, and sports. It also continuously strengthens its "urban consumption hub" attribute through numerous IP pop-ups and themed events, achieving mutual foot traffic guidance rather than simple diversion.
From the perspective of cultivating an international consumption center city, Huo Hongyi believes Guangdong's most distinctive feature is combining commercial consumption with urban culture, tourism resources, and industrial advantages. "In the past, we were accustomed to measuring a city's commercial competitiveness by shopping center area, number of brands, and commercial project investment. But in the future, what matters more is whether the city can continuously create reasons worth consumers making special trips for."
Song Xiangqing summarized this path as "parallel renewal of existing assets and expansion of incremental capacity," promoting the iterative upgrading of traditional world-class commercial districts and differentiated breakthroughs for emerging landmarks. He pointed out: "Systematically connecting Lingnan's lively atmosphere, the Greater Bay Area's fashion vitality, debut and first-show scenarios, and the nighttime economy system, forging a scenario innovation model of multi-point momentum and citywide coordination."
Beneath the impressive data, the market is more concerned about whether this round of trade-in policy will overdraft subsequent consumer demand, and where the long-term momentum for consumption growth will come from.
In Huo Hongyi's view, truly effective consumption stimulus is not about making consumers buy things because of subsidies, but about making consumers with real needs more willing and more able to buy things. He believes that the improvement in precision and directness of this round of policy is commendable, but the construction of a long-term mechanism still requires more institutional arrangements.
Wang Chunjuan pointed out that Guangdong's advantage lies in "two-way connectivity between the industrial side and the consumption side." Leveraging local manufacturing and building on home appliances, digital products, and light industry, it combines trade-in industrial policy with offline consumption scenarios. Stacked with cross-border consumption, cultural tourism consumption, and nighttime consumption in diverse scenarios, it drives physical commerce to shift from selling goods to integrating experience, culture, and digital consumption.
Song Xiangqing emphasized that Guangdong's path offers the insight of not relying on a single super project for isolated breakthrough, but persisting in parallel renewal of existing assets and expansion of incremental capacity. Relying on Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao connectivity, it creates consumption scenarios oriented toward the Greater Bay Area and even the international market.
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