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Population

Population is a factor in market size. For some products whose consumers are potentially every walking person, the total population represents the customer base and a percentage of the population would be the target of sales efforts. For other products, the population size would need to have a denominator before a company can assess the market. In other words, the size of the population does not determine a market that a company can address economically and realistically reach. It is an onion of which the outer skins need to be peeled off.

At the end of 2001, China registered a population of 1,276.7 million (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and other southern islands). Evidently China is now the most populous country in the world, while India is catching up. Some experts predict that India will replace China as the world’s largest country. One underlying reason for this expectation is that China’s population growth has slowed and the family planning policy has been effective in controlling the once explosive population. Table 1.7.1 below depicts the trend of China’s population growth over the last two decades or so and the slow growth trend is obvious. According to one estimate, by 2010 the population is expected to stay at
1.4 billion, and by the middle of this century the population growth will halt at a peak of 1.6 billion. Thereafter, the population is expected to decline.