Is Asia Still Worth It for Export by Consumer Goods Brands?

If you have spent any time in international trade conversations over the past 18 months, you will have noticed a shift in tone. The question that used to be “which Asian market should we enter first?” has quietly become something more hesitant. Tariff uncertainty, geopolitical tension, a wobbling Chinese consumer market, and a seemingly endless stream of headlines about de-risking and supply chain diversification have left a lot of SME exporters genuinely unsure about their next move. And so the question I keep being asked in one form or another is this: is Asia still worth it for export in 2026 and going forward, or is it time to look elsewhere? My answer is yes – but with considerably more clarity and strategic rigour than most companies currently bring to that conversation.

Before I make that case with evidence, I want to spend a moment on what I think has been one of the most instructive narratives of the past few years. Because to understand why Asia remains the right long-term bet for consumer goods brands, it helps to look honestly at what happened when a significant number of them started looking elsewhere.

11th March 2026:
Because I’m a woman of impeccable timing, this post was prepared before the present ongoing war involving the US, Israel and Iran had affected the Gulf & I’ve decided to go ahead anyway. Consequently war hasn’t been factored into this post as it’s impossible at the present time to say:
– how long this war will continue
– what physical damage will have been done to infrastructure in the Gulf markets
– the longer term psychological damage done to investor and brand confidence in the region
So obviously, my words here apply to the previous (& hopefully soon again) fairly stable GCC situation.

The GCC was going to be the “Next China” for rapid growth. What happened?

Cast your mind back to roughly 2022-2023 – or indeed to a few weeks ago at Gulfood in Dubai. A particular story was gaining real momentum in the food and beverage export world: the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman) was being positioned as the next great consumer goods frontier. The narrative was compelling on paper. Young, wealthy populations. Rapid modernisation of retail. High import dependency with a strong appetite for premium international brands. Government-backed megaprojects promising millions of new middle-class consumers. At trade shows and in export strategy presentations, I heard the phrase “the next China” more times than I can count (obviously in terms of rapid growth, not overall size).

And to be fair, none of those underlying facts were completely wrong. The GCC is a genuinely interesting market and for certain categories, certain price points and certain brand profiles it remains a strong opportunity. I am not writing it off.

But here is what the “next China” framing consistently underestimated – and where the numbers tell a rather different story to the trade show presentations.

Let’s start with population. The entire GCC has a total population of around 56 million people, of whom approximately 55% are expatriates, temporary workers rather than settled consumers building long-term brand loyalty. In the UAE and Qatar, that expatriate proportion rises to 87-88%. That means the “wealthy, aspirational consumer base” is considerably smaller than the headline population figure implies, and is structurally more transient than any Asian market of comparable interest. Compare that to ASEAN adding 112 million new middle-class consumers by 2035 alone from a base that is already settled, growing and buying. The scale contrast is fundamental and one of the core benefits of exporting to Asia.

The packaged food growth data reinforces the point. The GCC packaged food market is forecast to grow at a volume CAGR of just 2.98% to 2030, while Asia-Pacific commands 32.6% of the global packaged food market and is growing at a 7.56% CAGR over the same period. There are specific GCC sub-categories that outperform (functional food and beverages, for instance, are growing faster) but as a broad consumer goods opportunity, the scale and trajectory of Asia is simply in a different league.

None of that makes the GCC the wrong choice for every brand. The GCC is genuinely premium-friendly in many categories, particularly in the UAE, and high import dependency creates real opportunity for the right products at the right price points. But the issue for many European exporters is more about which consumers they are actually reaching and through which channels, rather than the headline market narrative. The regulatory fragmentation across six distinct environments, complex and relationship-dependent distributor dynamics, variable modern trade infrastructure outside the UAE, and slower payment terms all add layers of difficulty that the “next China” story consistently edited out. Many brands discover this only after they have already committed budget.

What it illustrates is a pattern I have seen repeat itself throughout my career: when a market becomes fashionable, the complexity gets quietly edited out of the conversation. The same thing happened with China in the 2000s, with Southeast Asia in the early 2010s, and now, to some extent, with the GCC. Enthusiasm is not a market entry strategy. And right now, with Vision 2030 projects moving more slowly than anticipated and regional geopolitical instability adding a layer of uncertainty nobody was planning for, quite a few brands that pivoted enthusiastically towards the Gulf are quietly reassessing their position.

This is not a criticism of those businesses. It is simply an observation that the grass-is-greener impulse – the idea that some other market is more straightforward than the one you are currently wrestling with – is almost always misleading.

So is Asia Still Worth It for Export?Let the Numbers Answer First

Let me address the anxiety directly, because I think it is worth being honest about what has genuinely changed rather than dismissing concerns with vague optimism. And let me start with the data, because that is rather clear.

Those are not the numbers of a region losing its relevance. They are the numbers of a region in structural ascent, with the consumer class expansion to back it up. Now let me be equally honest about the near-term picture, because credibility matters more than any fluffy “ra-ra” support.

The same Bain/NielsenIQ report flags that FMCG category growth rates across Southeast Asia were weaker in the first half of 2025 than in prior years, with 43% of consumers cutting back on non-essential spending and 52% of executives expecting slower growth in 2026. This is real and worth acknowledging. The critical distinction though is that short-term consumer sentiment softness in a structurally growing region is a timing question, not a structural one. Brands that treat a cautious 2025-2026 as a reason to delay their Asia market entry strategy are making a long-term decision on the basis of short-term data. That is a mistake I have seen made repeatedly, and it is always more expensive in hindsight than it appeared at the time.

What Has Actually Changed – and What Has Not

Exporting to Asian countries: China

China is more complicated and more competitive than it was ten years ago. The consumer confidence picture is uneven. Domestic brands have become significantly more sophisticated, and the regulatory environment for imported food and beverages has tightened considerably. The geopolitical backdrop (US-China trade tensions, European de-risking conversations, Taiwan-related uncertainty) creates a layer of strategic noise that was not present to the same degree a decade ago. All of that is real and any brand telling you China is a simple proposition in 2026 is either not paying attention or trying to sell you something.

What has not changed is that China still has 1.4 billion people, a middle class of several hundred million consumers, and extraordinary diversity of opportunity across its tier structure. As I explored in depth in my post on moving from gambling to strategy in China, the brands succeeding right now share one characteristic: they arrived with structure, data and cultural intelligence rather than optimism and inherited assumptions. China is not a gamble. It is a market that rewards rigour and punishes shortcuts.

Asian market development: Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is arguably in its strongest structural position ever for international consumer goods brands. The distribution infrastructure has improved dramatically over the past decade. E-commerce, and particularly social commerce via TikTok Shop – which became the number two e-commerce platform across ASEAN-6 in 2024 – is reshaping how brands reach consumers, including in markets that were previously difficult to penetrate beyond capital cities.

Vietnam is the clearest illustration of how fast this evolution has moved. As Benji Lamb of Asia Circles described in my podcast, Vietnam has gone from an interesting frontier market to a genuinely sophisticated consumer goods environment in roughly seven years. The FTA landscape has improved significantly, barriers to entry are lower than much of SEA, and marketing investment goes further than in more saturated markets. That’s no longer a peripheral opportunity, instead it’s a market in the sweet spot of its development curve.

I would also point to Yakult as a reminder of what patient, disciplined market development looks like in Southeast Asia. Yakult did not chase rapid scale, rely on celebrity endorsement or compete on price. It invested in consumer education, controlled its distribution, and built habitual consumption slowly across multiple markets. The result is deep, habitual loyalty that no competitor has been able to dislodge. That story is as relevant today as it was when Yakult first entered the region – perhaps more so, given how noisy the category landscape has become.

Asia consumer goods opportunity: Korea & Japan

For brands with the right product profile and the patience to navigate premium positioning, both markets remain among the most rewarding in the world for imported food and beverages. South Korea in particular, as Peter Park explained in my Korea export post, has an extraordinary consumer appetite for new international products – but it punishes brands that arrive without proper regulatory preparation and distributor relationships. Country of origin alone is not enough. The brand story and channel strategy have to be right but when they are, the returns justify the investment.

The Real Question Is Not “Whether” but “How” Your Asia Market Entry Strategy Should Look

Here is where I want to be direct, because I think the question of whether it is still worth it for export is actually the wrong question – or at least an incomplete one. The more useful question is: are you approaching Asia in a way that genuinely gives you a chance of succeeding? And right now, too many SMEs are not (which is why the UAE & Saudi seem like an attractive alternative).

In my experience, the brands that struggle in Asia almost never struggle because the market is too difficult (please mail me with info about world markets that are easy!!). They struggle because they arrived underprepared, under-resourced, or with a strategy that was essentially “find a distributor and see what happens.” That approach has never worked reliably in any market, and it works even less well now that competition across every Asian market has intensified. This is not a chicken-and-egg situation either. Your strategy has to come before execution. Otherwise, how will you even know the answer to “is Asia still worth it for export” for your specific product, your specific price point, and your specific category?

What does work, and what I see working consistently, tends to share four characteristics.

Clarity about which market you are actually entering and why

This sounds obvious but it is extraordinary how many brands choose their Asian market based on where the founder has a contact, or which trade show they happened to attend. A proper market opportunity analysis – one that weighs your specific product category, price point, regulatory requirements, channel fit and competitive landscape against the realities of each potential market – is not a luxury reserved for university projects. It is the foundation that the rest builds on. It’s the difference between an Asia market entry strategy and a guess. If you want a framework for thinking this through, my free ebook covers the methodology in detail.

A distribution strategy that goes beyond “finding a distributor”

The distributor relationship is the engine of your Asian market performance, and it is where I see the most chronic underinvestment of time, thinking and contractual rigour. Who you choose, how you structure the agreement, what KPIs you set, how you manage performance over time, and critically how you handle the conversation when things start slipping – all of this matters enormously and none of it sorts itself out just by leaving it. I have written about the specific warning signs of a distributor relationship in trouble here. One thing I would add from experience: the distributor who was the perfect fit for your market three years ago may not be the right fit for where your brand needs to go next. That’s not a failure by anyone involved. It’s simply a natural evolution that needs to be managed proactively rather than avoided out of loyalty.

Realistic timelines and budget expectations for reaching customers in Asia

Asia rewards patience in a way that brands used to faster-moving Western markets find genuinely uncomfortable. Building consumer trust, establishing distribution depth, and achieving the kind of velocity that makes a market financially worthwhile takes longer than your initial business plan will project. The brands that succeed are the ones whose leadership understands this going in. The Yakult model is the extreme version of this principle, where there were decades of investment in consumer education before chasing scale, but the underlying logic applies equally to a mid-sized European food brand entering Vietnam or Indonesia today.

A willingness to be genuinely market-specific will improve Asia market outreach

Your Vietnam strategy and your South Korea strategy should look quite different from each other in their operational details. Your China approach and your Malaysia approach should reflect the very different regulatory, cultural and channel realities of those two markets. The biggest single mistake I see in Asia market entry is the copy-paste approach – taking a strategy that worked in one market and assuming it will translate directly to another. It almost never does and you end up damaging relationships in the process. Your Asia market entry strategy should be more “Asian market entry strategies” – plural, specific and earned.. That doesn’t always mean each country will have a radically different approach, but you have to respect the nuance of the huge region that Asia is made up of when you start thinking about your Asian market development.

What This Means for Your Planning Right Now

If you are currently reassessing your international expansion priorities (whether because of tariff uncertainty, internal resource constraints, or the general background noise of a complicated geopolitical moment) my honest advice is this: don’t let short-term turbulence drive long-term strategic decisions.

The brands that built strong positions in Asia during the uncertainty of 2008, 2016 and 2020 are the ones reaping the benefits now. Uncertainty creates space. Competitors who pull back leave room for brands that stay disciplined, strategic and present. The fundamental consumer trends that make Asia compelling for food and beverage brands – growing middle classes, increasing premiumisation in specific categories, demand for trusted imported products with strong provenance stories – have not reversed. They have slowed in places and shifted in others, but the structural direction has not changed.

The GCC will continue to be interesting for the right brands and right categories (the advice about not immediately pulling back because of a geopolitical challenge applies here too). Other emerging markets will generate their share of excitement and, yes, hype. But for consumer goods SMEs with serious long-term international ambitions, Asia remains the most significant and most rewarding long game available because of the sheer size of the opportunity. The answer to “is Asia still worth it for export” is not a simple yes. It is a conditional yes: if you prepare properly, enter strategically, choose your markets for the right reasons and manage your distribution relationships with the rigour they deserve.

I think you are more than capable of all of that. The question is whether you currently have the right strategy and the right support to back it up?

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Kathryn

Kathryn Read, MIEx (Grad), is an international sales and marketing consultant with over 30 years’ experience developing niche products in emerging markets. She helps small and medium companies to break through international barriers, creating successful entrepreneurs and a thriving global marketplace.
Kathryn firmly believes that business is done between people, and therefore places her focus on building strong relationships that form a solid foundation for doing business.
When she's not travelling around the world, Kathryn enjoys playing clarinet in her town's wind orchestra or sharing her love of the outdoors with her Scout group.

Latest posts by Kathryn (see all)

• Marketing in South Korea for Global Consumer Brands - 08/04/2026
• Raising the Lobster: Potential AI Risks in China for European Brands - 25/03/2026
• Is Asia Still Worth It for Export by Consumer Goods Brands? - 12/03/2026