TOTAL LICENSING Top and emerging domestic properties. As the licensing market in China grows, more and more Chinese companies realize the importance of brand licensing, and start to explore opportunities in the business. The China Licensing Expo serves as the most professional channel for domestic properties, from well-recognized properties to emerging ones. In 2018, Chinese domestic properties including Tencent, Alpha, Wanda, NetEase, Aqiyi and more popular and young properties from social media took part in the exhibition. Art and museum properties. Alongside the regular tradition of animated characters, CLE covers the whole property spectrum, and art and museum properties were in the spotlight this year. The 12th edition of the China Licensing Expo featured a special museum pavilion for the second time, and more museums participated in the expo independently from home and abroad, including China National Museum, Summer Palace, the British Museum, Van Gogh Museum and Reunion des Musees Nationaux. The beautiful merchandise created by museums shows state-of-the-art and proves that art licensing is becoming trendy and fashionable in China, with more high-end consumers prefer to choose those products to identify with their life style. More dynamic pavilions. There were nine pavilions at CLE last October, including the China Museum Pavilion, Japan Pavilion, Korean Pavilion, and Chinese Taipei Pavilion. They brought more fresh and new properties to the
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“This year, the exhibition space at CLE expanded by 52 percent, reaching 35,000 sqm, with 304 exhibitors presenting over 1,200 brands of which international brands occupy over 80 percent, ranging from top-notch global licensors to fresh properties. In addition, 47 percent of them are new exhibitors this year.” market and expanded into much wider categories, including entertainment, arts, museums and fashion. To better promote the licensing business in China, the China National Light Industry Council initiated and established the China Licensing
Federation in October 2017. It is the first ever unit for Chinese licensing industry, supported by 26 different industrial associations. “To help more manufacturing companies to get a better understanding in licensing and properties, the China
Licensing Federation launched a professional searching website for the industry this June.” commented Du Tonghe, President of China Licensing Federation. According to Du, the website “China Brand Licensing 365” serves as the online search and matchmaking platform, and over 400 properties from nearly 200 licensors and agents have registered for the website. Thanks to the internet, the platform simplifies network building and business exploration. Licensee companies can just go to visit the website and conduct match-making
online for 365 days of the year. Besides the convenience it brings, the network also helps the industry operation to develop in a healthy direction. The brand licensing industry is developing rapidly in China. According to statistics from the China Licensing Industry Report issued by CTJPA, the total retail volume of licensed merchandise in China has surpassed USD 10 billion and has maintained a 20 percent year-on-year growth in the last five years. A LIMA report also refers to China now as the fifth largest licensing market in the world. “I believe, with the support from both the China Licensing Federation and China Licensing Expo, the licensing industry in China will without doubt embrace significant potential in terms of development and a more promising future in the coming years.“ concluded Du.