The pet industry represents a vertical market segment, but its scale continues to grow, making it one of the most remarkable phenomena in today's consumer market.

On August 18, ahead of the Asian Pet Fair, Tmall hosted a private CEO session for pet brands in Shanghai, bringing together domestic and international brand leaders to discuss future industry development opportunities. Shangyin, Head of Pet Industry at Taobao and Tmall, disclosed key performance metrics at the event: overall annual transaction volume exceeded 50 billion yuan, with Tmall Pet maintaining sustained double-digit growth.

During this year's Tmall 618 shopping festival, third-party data agencies indicated that as a representative industry of emotional consumption, Tmall's pet industry market share in the first phase reached 67%, more than three times that of the second-place competitor, once again confirming that "Tmall Pet continues to demonstrate strong explosive growth."

Facing such a rapidly growing sunrise industry, pet brands find themselves both blessed and burdened with their respective challenges. Domestic brands need to maintain competitiveness through continuous innovation, while international major brands must face fierce competition from the strong rise of domestic brands.

Qin Hua, Chairman of Guaibao Pet, repeatedly emphasized during exchanges that Guaibao Pet started research from scratch, and today this database contains nearly 100 million entries.

When asked about Royal Canin's product structure being "overly stable," Xu Juan, General Manager of Royal Canin Pet Food China, provided her response. To some extent, Guaibao Pet and Royal Canin represent two typical brand archetypes. One transformed from OEM manufacturing, constantly seeking innovation and change, becoming a representative of domestic brands in today's pet market. Their story resembles Nike's surprise attack on Adidas back in the day.

On the other hand, Royal Canin, with nearly 60 years of history, must maintain consistency with its brand DNA of "dogs and cats first" and precise nutrition concepts. When Royal Canin China proposed "brand rejuvenation" to global headquarters, the response from Royal Canin's global headquarters carried a touch of "cold humor." Headquarters believed that a brand with nearly 60 years of history should focus more on meeting the unique health and nutrition needs of dogs and cats of different ages, breeds, and sizes, along with maintaining a professional brand image in product development. In other words, "brand rejuvenation" might not be the top priority.

From Taobao and Tmall's perspective, whether it's the emergence of multiple brands under Guaibao or Royal Canin's consistent top rankings, the platform welcomes both. It is precisely these brands' dedication to solving various pain points for pets and pet owners that has led to the pet consumption segment achieving annual sales exceeding 50 billion yuan on Taobao and Tmall.

Importantly, 50 billion yuan is just a milestone, far from being the endpoint for Taobao and Tmall Pet. The current scale of 350 billion yuan (300 billion for cats and dogs + 50 billion for exotic pets) is also not the endpoint for China's pet industry. Platforms, brands, and consumers are all still evolving together.

**Platform Aggregation Effect**

In previous in-depth coverage, the author emphasized that the maternal and infant market, often used for comparison, actually differs significantly from the pet market, though people previously preferred to focus on similarities. Among these differences, maternal and infant consumption channels and scenarios are relatively dispersed, but the pet market shows high channel concentration.

In terms of physical pet consumption, comprehensive online e-commerce platforms serve as consumers' primary purchasing channels, while offline channels focus mainly on medical care and services. Among these, Taobao and Tmall have consistently been China's largest online channel for pet consumption.

When channels become highly concentrated, this brings several impacts. First, from the brand perspective, this means most brands compete on the same playing field, making many data indicators transparent and intensifying competition.

Renowned economist He Fan also set aside serious macroeconomic issues to offer suggestions for pet economy development. His presentation included many interesting questions that only pet owners would understand, such as "Why does your cat never sleep in the cat bed you bought for it?" He Fan believes the pet industry also needs to counter involution, requiring serious user research and innovative thinking to break through.

When market scale still has significant room for growth, everyone should work together to expand the market pie. In fact, the pet industry has shown premiumization trends in recent years, which is also a response to involution.

So can premiumization weaken fierce competition in the pet market and allow some brands to break out of the encirclement? Or are companies just continuing to compete in different price ranges?

Shangyin, Head of Pet Industry at Taobao and Tmall, responded: "First, premiumization doesn't refer to a single price dimension, but comprehensive upgrades across all pet products. This trend proves that pets represent a good market, as premiumization reflects a highly consumption-capable pet owner demographic. Good markets inevitably involve competition, but companies can actually find their respective differentiation points. For example, what can you do to move consumers - is it better palatability through process upgrades, products for specific breeds, or care for pets of different ages? Consumers are willing to pay for their pets' better lives, but the core question is what your differentiated selling points are, what pain points you solve for pets and pet owners, and what experiences you improve. Good tracks inevitably attract competitors, and your core focus should be consolidating your fundamental value."

As the largest online pet consumption portal, Taobao and Tmall have over 100 million annual purchasing users, providing sufficient data samples for deeper insights into pet market development.

The "2025 Taobao and Tmall Pet Consumption Trend Insight White Paper" published by Taotian Group indicates that pet-specific products have become an important industry development trend. According to search data, demand for pet-specific products is growing comprehensively, with cats prioritizing age > breed > coat length, and dogs prioritizing size > age > breed. Overall, cat owners pay relatively more attention to breeds, while dog owners focus more on size.

To address this trend, many brands are making efforts, such as breed-specific food, but vast development space remains.

Notably, although China already has over 100 million pet cats and dogs, and internet information is highly developed today, significant educational and promotional opportunities still exist for pet knowledge. Unlike other industries' paternalistic approach to "educating" consumers, pet owners who adopt parental mindsets eagerly seek more useful professional knowledge and practical experience.

For example, how to determine when a cat reaches adulthood or enters senior years? This seemingly basic question stumps many people, and online content creators often offer conflicting explanations.

Therefore, Taobao and Tmall Pet collaborated with Royal Canin to publish age classification standards for cats and dogs. This standard not only clarifies consumer confusion but also standardizes market product definitions. For instance, if a brand wants to launch senior cat food, it must first determine its target "user cat" age range.

In this sense, beyond possessing numerous merchants and operational tools across the Taobao and Tmall platforms, Taobao and Tmall Pet has inadvertently become China's most important pet industry data insight platform and consumer education base.

As Shangyin noted, "Taobao and Tmall Pet has always promoted trending categories. The core action for consumers to learn about something on the largest scale is actually marketing behavior. Every year we organize numerous category days, like Cat Category Day, Dog Category Day, Health Category Day, and various trending track category days. We achieve this through designing such formats and making joint investments with brands. If brands had to educate alone, they might incur significant costs, but when platforms collaborate on co-investments, costs can be reduced. Taobao and Tmall consistently undertake this role - you can see the 'Senior Pet Plan,' including senior dogs and pet aging category marketing behaviors, basically initiated by Taobao and Tmall."

**Growth Drivers**

Pet economy growth stems from emotional economy or what Japanese scholar Miura Atsushi calls the loneliness economy. As more new pet owners emerge, particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha becoming pet owners, they not only hope to better care for their pets but also want to better understand their furry children's needs.

Meanwhile, pet brands not only aim to meet pet needs but also hope to provide more market education for novice pet owners. In this regard, platforms and pet brands are increasingly collaborating on "homework." This might be another characteristic of the pet economy.

China's younger generation consumers indeed love their cats and dogs deeply, with that "I can suffer but not my pet" dedication spirit being a true reflection of many people's hearts. However, this doesn't mean all of them truly "understand" their pets.

Bravecto is a major deworming product under Zoetis. Wang Qing, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Greater China at Zoetis Group, provided figures: among China's 100 million pet cats and dogs, vaccination rates are around 20%, while vaccination is the most basic guarantee for pet health. This ratio exceeds 60% abroad.

Wang Qing also pointed out that even fewer pets in China receive regular check-ups, while check-ups are important means of preventing chronic disease risks in middle-aged and senior pets.

Therefore, although there are some specific approaches in the e-commerce market, such as frequently mentioned explosive products and new launches, Wang Qing believes that with China's pet market developing rapidly, in the medical field, Zoetis hopes to bring more innovative product combinations and professional diagnostic and treatment solutions to pets, rather than pursuing rapid "new launches" and creating certain "explosive" products.

He noted, "Domestic pet pharmaceutical R&D levels continue improving. Theoretically, when markets develop to a certain stage, our gap with mature foreign markets will gradually narrow. On the other hand, while we promote scientific pet care education, we're also expanding our business and deeply cultivating market development. So China's market development pace and speed exceed other markets."

China's pet market inevitably faces influence from the broader e-commerce environment. Tiande, General Manager of Pet Enterprise Culture and Education at Taobao and Tmall, specifically mentioned instant retail development having great potential in the pet market. The obvious fact is that many pet owners are women, and we often see women carrying heavy bags of cat food or litter upstairs - "it's really too heavy."

In the long term, China's pet market maturation should result from multi-party collaboration. In this process, both scale growth and healthy sustainability are needed, where platform regulatory roles remain very important.

**Brands Going Left and Right**

Undeniably, leading brands represent pet market development directions. However, different brands have different development paths and directions.

Like many industries, international major brands were the earliest pioneers of China's pet market. In pet circles, Royal Canin Pet Food is unavoidable.

When asked about maintaining "stability" amid China's flexible and ever-changing competitive environment, Xu Juan shared thoughts on brand "change and constancy": "Actually for Royal Canin, we focus more on dogs' and cats' own nutritional needs. If you owned a purebred cat 16 years ago versus today, its nutritional requirements probably haven't changed significantly. This is why Royal Canin's main product lines haven't undergone particularly major changes over these years."

On the other hand, Royal Canin's reputation largely stems from its prescription food market. Xu Juan noted, "But we actually do have changes. In certain disease areas, we're becoming increasingly specialized. In very specific fields, after achieving continuous technological breakthroughs, we've made product lines increasingly comprehensive. This week we'll launch three products." She also previewed that cardiac disease prescription food might launch by year-end.

Addressing external discussions, Xu Juan responded: "Outsiders might say Royal Canin doesn't follow trends or chase fashions with many changes and upgrades, but this is actually Royal Canin's long-term commitment choice - more importantly, we choose what not to do. I think Royal Canin has always valued whether that final bite of food reaching dogs and cats has sufficiently precise nutritional ratios - this is what we care about most." She emphasized that Royal Canin consistently focuses on "doing what we're good at."

If Royal Canin's foundation determines its products won't undergo particularly aggressive changes, then domestic brand leaders' development tells a different story.

Discussing Guaibao Pet's development history, Chairman Qin Hua said: "Guaibao emphasizes dogs and cats first. (Pets) represent dual consumers - dogs and cats are primary, then humans. We must create pet-friendly products, not just flashy appearances that look lively but aren't good for dogs and cats. This principle is correct - prioritizing dogs' and cats' needs and truly helping pet owners better care for their pets is genuine value return to consumers."

However, Qin Hua also indicated that Guaibao Pet invested heavily in research from scratch. "Large investments, research methods possibly different from abroad, with much new data emerging. We later created the Myfoodie Warm Data database, quantifying dogs' and cats' behavioral preferences and nutritional needs across different life cycles, breeds, and environments through long-term research and data analysis. This allows us to start from studying dogs' and cats' natural instincts, reverse-engineering formula design, ingredient selection, and production processes."

Qin Hua emphasized that innovative products aren't created for concepts or gimmicks. "For example, our fresh meat food stemmed from in-depth research on dogs' and cats' digestive physiology. Digestibility has many indicators, such as apparent digestibility, pepsin digestibility, etc. Meeting these indicators requires attention to precisely incorporating fresh meat through processes - these insights gradually deepened through research advancement and process innovation. Our R&D center has four to five hundred dogs and cats conducting such research."

Obviously, domestic brands are more flexible in product innovation and have more direct perspectives responding to local consumer demands compared to international brands.

Foreign and domestic brands' product philosophies - one right, one left - precisely reflect pet food market maturity and diversity. For users, having products with different philosophies simultaneously appearing in markets, creating more competition and supply, is actually beneficial.

Because pet economy overall remains relatively new in China and features what Qin Hua calls "dual consumer" characteristics, both brand and consumer cognition will undergo continuous iteration processes.

As Xu Cuihua Cat Litter founder Peng Han's memorable quote from his speech stated: "Many people don't realize that cat litter serves more as a need for scooping humans, not just cats' needs."