Residents shop at a jewelry store in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province on March 6, 2021. Photo: VCG

As the International Women's Day arrives on Monday, and Chinese e-commerce platforms celebrate the goddess shopping festival, the fast development of "she economy" is again under spotlight. Analysts said that women are at the same time buyers and creators of new wave of consumption.

According to CBNData, the female consumer market in China exceeded 10 trillion yuan ($1.53 trillion) in 2020. 

"Objectively speaking, women's purchasing frequency is higher [than men], which is closely related to the division of social roles and the categories of consumption, and is also something that any consumer brand can't ignore," a Beijing-based e-commerce analyst surnamed Mo told the Global Times on Monday, adding that women are not only drivers of consumption, but also creators of consumption and the "she economy".

"She economy" is a term coined by the Ministry of Education in 2007 to refer to markets targeting women.

Women contribute 75 percent of total household consumption in China and buy 50 percent of male-targeted products. In other words, women have mastered the lifeblood of the consumer market. With the rise of female power, "she economy" has risen rapidly, according to the Chinese securities firm Guotai Junan. 

According to a Tmall report on "she economy", 80 percent of the new leading brands focus on female consumer demand and female entrepreneurs account for 40 percent of new brands and for more than 50 percent in costume sector on Tmall, the e-commerce platform under Alibaba.

Female consumption showed the trend of "please myself" - the number of women buying boxing gloves on Tmall has doubled in the past year. On Tmall, more than 70 percent of those who buy AJ are women, and 80 percent of those who buy suits are women, showed Tmall report.

Among the users whose sales contribution is more than 10,000 yuan in 2020, 65 percent were women, per report by e-commerce NetEase Yanxuan released on Monday. Women have bought more than 1,000 tons of cat food on the platform in 2020, enough to feed an adult cat for 40,000 years.

The female consumption on e-commerce platforms was largely boosted by the scale of female internet users, reaching 530 million by 2020, accounting for 45.4 percent of all internet users, while the number of active female users is 100 million, accounting for 58.5 percent, per a report by Mob Tech.

Female internet users also feed a game market of 56.84 billion yuan in 2020, and a mobile game market of 40.19 billion yuan.

Apart from consumption, "she power" also immerged in stock market and entrepreneurship. A total of 242 A-share listed companies had female chairmen as of Sunday, accounting for 5.79 percent of all listed companies, according to iFind data. Market value of the listed companies with female chairman was about 3.9 trillion yuan.

Female-themed reality shows, films and dramas have gained a lot of attention in China from recent years. For example, the female-themed comedy film Hi Mom became the second highest grossing film in China's box office history, taking in more than $825 million as of Saturday.