Visitors queue up to claim gift packs at a booth during the Pet Fair Beijing 2025 in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 27, 2025. (Xinhua/Cao Bin)
BEIJING, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- As pets become core members of multiple families, the pet economy is expanding to a full-chain ecosystem covering medical care, beauty, training, and insurance beyond food and product sales.
According to data from Chongyejia, an information platform focusing on the pet industry, in the first half of this year, domestic pet consumption reached 77.375 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.84 percent.
In addition, with the accelerated integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into the pet industry, the industry has ushered in new development momentum.
-- Broad market space
The size of the urban pet (dogs and cats) consumer market exceeded 300 billion yuan in 2024, with the total number of dogs and cats increasing slightly year on year to surpass 120 million, the white paper on China's pet industry in 2025 shows.
According to the report on the operation status and consumer market monitoring of China's pet industry from 2024 to 2025 which was released by iiMedia Research, the industrial scale of China's pet economy maintains a positive growth trend, and the market size is expected to reach 1.15 trillion yuan by 2028.
The role of pets is no longer just companionship, and pets have become important members of many families, said Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research, adding that as a result, consumers' demand for pet health management, personalized services, and more is also increasing.
In terms of the core transformation, AI technologies such as intelligent image analysis and semantic understanding algorithms play a crucial role in the intelligent upgrade of pet service scenarios, and as for business models, traditional hardware is shifting towards a "hardware+service" model, achieving a business closed-loop through subscription services, accessory sales, etc., according to Zhang.
At the ecological level, the transformation from manual operation to intelligent driving has been completed, and a relatively mature intelligent service ecosystem has been formed, Zhang noted.
The booming development of the pet economy is inseparable from policy support. For instance, in March this year, Hefei City in east China's Anhui Province issued a three-year action plan (draft for comments) on promoting high-quality development of the pet economy; in June this year, Foshan City of south China's Guangdong Province formally issued the action plan on promoting the agglomeration and development of the pet economy (2025-2027).
Meanwhile, with the development of the pet economy, listed companies in the industry chain have achieved impressive performance.
For example, Yantai China Pet Foods Co., Ltd. (002891.SZ) achieved an operating revenue of 2.432 billion yuan in the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 24.32 percent, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of 203 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 42.56 percent.
Insiders believe that the sustained growth of the pet economy is a result jointly driven by multiple factors such as consumption concept iteration, expansion of demand in the pet consumption market, and improvement of industry development level.
The pet economy boasts obvious new features, driving consumption upgrading with emotional needs, and shifting from basic necessities to refined and personalized services, with the popularity of smart devices increasing and new demands such as pet mental health and high-end healthcare emerging, said Zhan Junhao, the founder of a consultancy in southeast China's Fujian Province.
-- Busy layouts of listed companies
The continuous development of the pet economy has attracted more and more listed companies to make layouts on this track. The deep integration of AI technologies such as intelligent monitoring, emotion recognition, pet doctors, customized services has become a key area. Many companies are speeding up layouts in "AI+pet economy".
Jinhe Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (002688.SZ) plans to officially launch its AI pet care partner "Aichongyi" App in August this year. It is learned that the first phase of the App features facial expression recognition, image recognition, pet encyclopedia, product selection, etc., while the second and third phases will cover AI consultation, AI diagnosis and treatment functions.
With "AI+pet economy" as the strategic engine, "Aichongyi" App aims to build a full-chain service closed-loop of "knowledge-commodity-medical care-law" and reshape the industrial pattern with technology, noted a representative of Jinhe Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
The launch of the App helps expand the sales channels of the company's own products, and can make revenue and profits through collecting entry fees from merchants and advertising, added the representative, saying that in the future, the pet business sector will become an important source of revenue and profits for the company.
Shanghai ANOKY Group Co., Ltd. (300067.SZ) has built a full-chain capability from underlying computing power, algorithm models to application products since 2024. It officially launched "Maoqiuciyuan", a personalized AI customization service platform targeting pets, in May this year.
It is learned that this platform is the first AI open ecosystem platform in pet customization which can accurately meet the personalized and IP-based customization needs of pets through the innovative model of AI and industry integration. It also creates a one-stop customization mall covering all scenarios of pet life.
"Maoqiuciyuan" is an important step for the company to empower consumption scenarios with AI, and in the future, it will further expand into an immersive virtual pet community, creating an online virtual pet planet and an offline pet friendly space, connecting the upstream and downstream of the industry chain with pet enthusiasts, and continuously accumulating the company's cross-border integration industry capabilities based on digital consumption, said a representative of Shanghai ANOKY Group Co., Ltd.
Invengo Information Technology Co., Ltd. (002161.SZ) said recently that it has developed intelligent pet hardware devices empowered by AI Agents, and continues to promote the formation of a full-cycle operation model of "hardware+AI+ecosystem", launching intelligent pet devices and apps to the market, as well as intelligent feeders, intelligent cat litter boxes, intelligent water feeders, RFID tags, and other products.
In the view of Zhan Junhao, with more and more enterprises joining the "AI+pet economy" sector, the industry competition will extend to "technological depth+data barriers", and relevant enterprises will compete in algorithm accuracy, scene coverage breadth, and user stickiness.
New business models may include AI-based pet health management subscription services, or "AI+offline experience stores" to provide one-stop intelligent pet care services, and there may also be AI-based pet product customization platforms to meet personalized needs, according to Zhan.
(Edited by Gu Shanshan with Xinhua Silk Road, gushanshan.1987@163.com)
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