They may earn only about £2,000 a year but they are 400 million-strong, scattered across the globe and have just bought themselves a fridge.
Meet Generation A, who soon could become the most important economic force on Earth.
Aged between 30 and 40, their per capita income is rising fast and their numbers are forecast to hit one billion within the next two decades. And it is a group whose consumerist aspirations (the “A”) are not about to stop with that fridge.
The emergence of Generation A coincides with a tipping-point reached this year, in which the world’s urban population equals its rural population for the first time. The concept of Generation A has been developed by analysts at Macquarie to explain and track many of the “mega trends” holding the global economy in their sway.