Marketing to China's pet economy: the category foreign brands keep misreading
Short version: China's pet economy is one of the few consumer categories still growing at a healthy clip — urban dogs and cats passed 126 million in 2025, and pet food alone is a roughly US$23 billion market. But the seat foreign brands used to own, the premium one, is being quietly repriced out from under them by domestic challengers. Winning here now means three moves: lead with cats, not dogs; sell to the owner's emotions, not the pet's biology; and earn the premium every quarter instead of assuming your imported label still commands it.
Most foreign pet brands I've watched enter China arrive with a comfortable story: China is humanizing its pets, humanized pets get premium products, and premium is where imported brands win. Every clause is true, and the conclusion is still wrong — because it describes 2019, not now. The market grew up. The domestic brands got good. And the assumption that "foreign" and "premium" are the same word is the most expensive thing in your deck.
The market is real, and it's not slowing down
Start with the scale, because it's the part everyone gets right. China's urban pet population reached about 126 million cats and dogs in 2025, and the urban pet market crossed 300 billion yuan — more than double where it sat five years earlier. Pet food is the anchor category at roughly 54% of spend. And unlike a lot of Chinese consumer categories that wobbled, this one kept climbing: pet sales across the major platforms hit RMB 9.4 billion during Double 11 in 2025, up 59% year on year, with premium formats like baked and air-dried food gaining share.
So demand isn't the problem. Owners are trading up, not down. The question is who they trade up to.
Lead with cats. Yes, really.
Here's the structural shift most foreign brands still under-index on: cats have overtaken dogs. In 2025 there were roughly 73 million pet cats to 53 million dogs, and the gap is widening — the cat-owning market grew around 10.7% in a recent year while the dog side grew about 4.6%. There's a real demographic engine underneath it. The core pet owner in China skews young, urban, higher- income, and often single or child-free; Millennials and Gen Z make up about half of all owners. Cats fit that life — apartment-friendly, low-maintenance, emotionally present without needing a walk at 7am.
If your global portfolio and your marketing are dog-first because your home market is dog-first, you're calibrated to the slower-growing half of China's market. That doesn't mean abandon dogs. It means your hero SKUs, your KOC seeding, and your Red (Xiaohongshu) content should probably be cat-led here, even when they're dog-led everywhere else.
You're not selling nutrition. You're selling parenthood.
"Humanization" gets said so often it's stopped meaning anything, so let me make it concrete. The Chinese pet owner isn't buying dog food; they're buying evidence that they're a good parent. That shows up as freeze-dried and fresh food, birthday cakes, custom clothing, themed photography, pet insurance, grooming spas, even funeral services. The spend is emotional, and emotional spend rewards brands that show they understand the owner's feeling, not just the animal's gut health.
Practically, that reorders your messaging. Ingredient claims and lab credentials are table stakes — necessary, not persuasive. What moves a young owner in Chengdu is the story that this brand gets the relationship: the guilt of leaving a cat alone all day, the pride of a healthy coat, the small daily ritual of feeding. Foreign brands that win here translate their science into that emotional register instead of shouting the science louder.
The premium seat isn't yours by default anymore
This is the part that stings. For years the mental model was: domestic brands own value, foreign brands own premium. That's breaking. During Double 11 2025, the top five pet brands on Tmall and Douyin were all domestic. Local players like Gambol's Myfoodie and Guaibao's Maifudi now sit at the top of the best-seller lists, and Myfoodie's domestic share climbed from around 2.4% in 2015 to 5.5% in 2024. Survey data tells the same story from the owner's side: among dog owners, roughly 33% say they only buy Chinese brands versus about 14% who only buy foreign; for cats it's 35% versus 13%.
Foreign brands still hold real ground — Royal Canin, for instance, remains a leader in dry food on JD — but the position is earned now, not inherited. Here's the honest way to read your options:
| If you're leaning on… | Why it's weakening | What actually defends the premium |
|---|---|---|
| "Imported / foreign" as the pitch | Domestic brands now win the best-seller lists; "foreign" no longer signals better | A specific, provable benefit — a formulation, a health outcome, a certification owners can verify |
| Global brand equity | Young owners don't carry your home-market reputation; they meet you cold on Red and Douyin | Local proof: KOC reviews, vet endorsements, before/after content owners trust |
| Price as a premium signal | Local challengers match your quality claims at a lower price | Justify the gap with function or ritual, or lose it — don't defend price with prestige alone |
| A single dog-led hero SKU | The fastest-growing owner keeps cats and buys on emotion | A cat-led range and content built around the owner's relationship, not the label |
Where the money actually converts
The pet path in China follows the same shape as most consumer categories, so I won't relitigate the whole map here — the cross-border marketing playbook covers the sequencing. Pet-specific notes: discovery and trust-building live on Red, where owners swap food reviews and health advice obsessively; reach and impulse live on Douyin; the transaction closes on Tmall, JD, and increasingly Douyin's in-app store. Vets and specialist pet KOLs carry outsized weight because health claims need a credible voice behind them — an owner will believe a trusted vet-KOC over your packaging every time.
Bottom line
China's pet economy is still one of the best growth stories in Chinese consumer — but it's no longer a soft landing for any imported brand with a premium price tag. The owners are younger, more likely to have a cat, and buying on emotion. The domestic brands are good and getting cheaper. So stop selling "foreign," and start earning premium the hard way: a real benefit, local proof, a cat-forward range, and a story that speaks to the owner's guilt and pride rather than the animal's biology. The brands that internalize that will keep the premium seat. The ones still coasting on "imported" will watch a Myfoodie take it.
If you're bringing a pet brand into China or Southeast Asia and want a straight read on whether your premium is actually defensible, that's the work I do — reach out. For the broader pattern behind this, read why most Western brands fail in China.