By 2025, 4.2 Billion People Will Be Part of the Consuming Class

Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream. Private consumption represents the volume of goods and services consumed by households and nonprofit institutions serving households. Data, based on 2010 constant prices not seasonally adjusted, from 2016 and forward are forecasts for all countries shown; for China, forecasts are from 2015. Values for consumption as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) are expressed as a share of nominal GDP.

Here's a first: By 2025, 4.2 billion people out of a global population of 7.9 billion will be part of the consuming class. That means, for the first time in history, the number of people with discretionary income will exceed the number still struggling to meet basic needs — a phenomenon that may well be the biggest opportunity in the history of capitalism. Demographics will have a major impact on the future of the global economy, particularly due to the aging of millennials, who were born from 1980 to 2000. There are about 80 million in the U.S., but most of the world's 2 billion millennials are living in emerging markets. In Brazil, India and China, they outnumber baby boomers. Globally, millennials are estimated to have a combined spending power of nearly $2.5 trillion. They are about to reach their prime working and spending years, and their impact on the world's economy could be huge.