Since the beginning of this year, a series of policies to boost consumption have injected strong momentum into the positive development of China's consumer market, from the release of the "Several Measures to Further Cultivate New Growth Points for Prosperous Culture and Tourism Consumption", to the introduction of the "Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption", and to the release of the "Guiding Opinions on Financial Support to Boost and Expand Consumption". With the continuous manifestation of policy effects, the consumer market in the first half of the year has outlined a vivid picture of rising heat: "Ne Zha 2" won the box office championship in the first half of the year with a box office of over 15 billion yuan; Su Chao continues to dominate the screen, driving a significant increase in hotel bookings in its home city... Experts believe that with the continuous promotion of consumer policies and increasing support, the consumer market is expected to continue the good trend of the first half of the year in the second half of the year. Among them, service consumption will become an important driving force for consumption growth. During the summer season, the coverage of national subsidy discounts and "half day delivery" services has expanded, and the air conditioning transaction volume of Meituan Flash Purchase in June increased by more than 10 times compared to the same period last year, unleashing consumer potential. This data reflects an important driving force behind it, which is the policy of exchanging old for new consumer goods. Since the beginning of this year, the trade in of old consumer goods has intensified efforts to expand the market and accelerate the release of consumer potential. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, as of May 31, 2025, the total sales revenue of the five major categories of consumer goods trade in will be 1.1 trillion yuan, and about 175 million subsidies will be issued directly to consumers. Among them, the number of applications for car trade in subsidies reached 4.12 million, 49.863 million consumers purchased 77.618 million units of 12 major categories of household appliances, 53.529 million consumers purchased 56.629 million units of digital products such as mobile phones, 6.5 million electric bicycles were exchanged for new, and 57.626 million orders for home decoration, kitchen and bathroom "revitalization" were received. Driven by policies, commodity consumption has shown a good growth momentum. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the retail sales of goods increased by 5.1% year-on-year from January to May, with a growth rate 1.9 percentage points higher than the full year of 2024. From the practice in various regions, policies not only directly drive a significant increase in sales of related consumer goods, but also actively promote the upgrading of consumer goods structure and the transformation of industrial chains. ”Yao Dongmin, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics and deputy director of the China Finance Development Collaborative Innovation Center, said. Policy support will continue. The relevant person in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission recently revealed that the current use of subsidies for the exchange of old and new consumer goods in China accounts for about 50% of the annual scale, and the overall progress is in line with expectations. Two batches of central funds totaling 162 billion yuan have been allocated in January and April this year to support local governments in carrying out the work of exchanging old for new consumer goods in the first and second quarters. Subsequently, 138 billion yuan of central funds will be distributed in batches and orderly in the third and fourth quarters. The effect of the national subsidy in the second quarter is significant. ”Shi Jinxing, Chief Analyst of the Home Appliance Industry at China Merchants Securities, stated that with the third batch of national subsidy funds in place, the popularity of the home appliance market will continue to be maintained. The development of service consumption accelerated from the movie watching and IP co branded commodity sales boom of Nezha 2 at the Spring Festival, to the "silver train" shuttling in the sea of flowers in spring, to the night watching "Loong Boat" and watching "Su Chao"... The consumption of cultural tourism in the first half of the year increased. With the steady increase in national income and the continuous release of new demand, there is still significant room for growth in the scale of cultural and tourism consumption in China. ”Jin Zhun, Secretary General of the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated that the demand side's higher pursuit of quality, experience, personalization, and spiritual satisfaction, along with the supply side's service innovation in refinement, segmentation, and intelligence, will promote the improvement of the quality of cultural and tourism consumption. The popularity of cultural tourism highlights the accelerated development of service consumption. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to May, the retail sales of services increased by 5.2% year-on-year, with a growth rate 0.1 percentage points faster than from January to April and 0.1 percentage points higher than the growth rate of retail sales of goods during the same period. The development of service consumption cannot be separated from the protection of policies. The "Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption" issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council regards the "Action to Improve Service Consumption and Benefit the People" as an important task to boost consumption. In June, the Ministry of Commerce launched the "Service Consumption Season" activity and focused on cultivating integrated consumption scenarios such as "tourism+", "food+", "sports+", "performing arts+", "exhibition+", "digital+", "IP+", "ice and snow+", "train+", "movie+", etc. The service consumption in the fields of cultural tourism, sports, entertainment, domestic services, and elderly care will accelerate its development through the "triple protection" of policy cultivation, economic laws, and market attention. ”Huang Wentao, Chief Economist of CITIC Securities, said that in the second half of the year, service consumption represented by personalized consumption, self enjoyment consumption, and experiential consumption will continue to be the highlight of the consumption field. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, with increasing policy support, it is expected to continue the growth trend of consumer demand in the first half of the year. Lian Ping, the director of Guangkai Chief Industry Research Institute, recently stated in an interview with China Securities Journal that the trend of consumer recovery is expected to continue in the second half of the year. The "two new" policies, expanding the opening up of the service sector, and continuing to implement the special action plan to boost consumption will become the key tasks to boost consumption in the second half of the year. Service consumption will be an important driving force for driving consumption growth. The "Economic and Financial Outlook Report for the Third Quarter of 2025" recently released by the Research Institute of Bank of China shows that since the second quarter, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other places have issued special action plans to boost consumption, comprehensively promoting the expansion of consumption and improving quality and efficiency. In the second half of the year, the support for consumption growth mainly comes from further policy reinforcement and the release of service consumption potential. Financial support for consumption continues to strengthen. The central bank and six other departments recently jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Financial Support to Boost and Expand Consumption", introducing 19 key measures and clarifying the direction and focus of current financial support for consumption growth. Wang Pengbo, Chief Analyst of the Financial Industry at Broadcom Consulting, believes that opinions are committed to enhancing residents' consumption ability on the one hand, and actively expanding financial supply and innovating product services on the other hand. This is not only a positive response to the current demand for stable macroeconomic growth, but also establishes a virtuous cycle of releasing consumption potential and improving high-quality supply through structural guidance of financial policies. (New Society)