Is China’s Piano Bubble Bursting?

[mcwetboy]

It was only a few years ago that China seemed to be in the grip of piano mania: tens of millions of children taking lessons, hundreds of thousands of pianos sold (something like 80 percent of the entire world market for pianos). But if this report, originally published in the Chinese-language Singaporean newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, is true, the Chinese piano bubble is bursting: “Weak market demand, worsening inventory pressure, declining birth rates, the ‘double reduction’ policy (reducing the burdens of homework and after-school tutoring) and other factors have led to a decline in the development of the entire industry.” Schools and stores closing, sales plummeting, millions of pianos sitting idle in warehouses.

So what happened? The report cites a number of factors, but what jumps out is a 2018 education policy change that eliminated the ability to gain bonus points from the arts for a child’s zhongkao (high school admission exam). Prior to that change, parents had been signing their kids up for piano lessons by the millions to take advantage of those bonus points and improve their kids’ chances of getting into a good school.

The ups and downs of China’s piano market show that the demand for pianos is dependent on the graded examination market, which is in turn largely driven by the public’s expectation that the ability to play the piano will help propel them into a higher social class. But the problem is that the vastly different economic and social situation now has dampened the dream of upward mobility, and impractical piano dreams no longer serve middle-class families.

In other words: the boom in piano lessons (and, as a result, piano sales) was less about music and more about class aspirations—something that Westerners ought to find familiar.

Mirrored from Jonathan Crowe.