The expanding middle class meets rising food prices. The convergence of these two mega trends is set to dramatically and permanently reshape the consumer landscape. With the global middle class growing by 70 million each year, and food prices expected to more than double within the next two decades, the world is entering an unprecedented period of rising demand, economic pressure and aspirationally driven buying behaviour. 

So what’s the key to success in these uncharted waters, and where should companies look to fulfil their economic growth expectations? According to Nielsen’s “State of Mind or Share of Wallet” report, companies shouldn’t focus solely on the middle class. Rather, findings in the report indicate that aspirations and cultural norms often are bigger drivers of buying intentions for food products than income alone.

Nielsen’s 2013 Asia Pacific Retail & Shopper Trends Report contains valuable insights on the retail sector and emerging shopper behaviour across 12 Asia Pacific markets. The report provides in-depth analysis, expert commentary on retail format trends and country-level insights coupled with extensive data including retail store universe numbers, chain store numbers and share of trade by channel.

In this September 2013 edition of the Nielsen Australian Online Landscape Review, we share the latest insights on Australia’s Connected Consumers; including market statistics, demographics, top performing major categories, brands and sectors and mobile device use.

This month we cover enhancements to web traffic reporting in the Nielsen Online Ratings interface. We also share some deeper insights on the sports category to see which sites online Australians are most engaged with and how this has changed over the past 12 months.

The Q1, 2013 Australian Multi Screen Report - compiled collaboratively by Nielsen and Australia's official television audience measurement providers, OzTAM and Regional TAM – provides the trends in video viewership beyond conventional television sets.