The pitch in Paris, Vevey, Cincinnati and London was more or less the same for almost 20 years China first, everything else second. Now, it's the other way around. Beijing's economy has slowed to its lowest point since the pandemic, while its households are saving instead of spending, and the world's largest packaged goods companies are re-mapping their strategies, with India at the centre of the new map.

No longer is the deceleration a subject of discussion only by economists, it is indeed reflected in the so-called earnings call every quarter. The economy's GDP growth was the slowest since the pandemic-related lockdowns in the second quarter of 2026, and has been the lowest among its three goals this quarter, all of which are in the 4.5-to-5 percent target range, already the lowest of its goals in 30 years. There's a long-term slump in property, local government debt continues to accumulate and deflationary pressures are stubborn. The growth China does see is more likely to come from electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors and AI-related manufacturing, and areas where shampoo, biscuit, instant coffee and skin care firms have made themselves household names in Asia, such as L'Oreal, Nestle, Unilever and Reckitt.

On the other hand, India is experiencing an opposite moment. The economy expanded by 7.8 percent in back-to-back quarters, past the pace forecast by the central bank, and is among the fastest-growing among major G20 nations despite the recent volatility of the rupee and continued high global energy prices. This is not a skewed difference. By now it is a gap of some three and a half percentage points between the two biggest consumer markets on earth, and for a multinational company which needs to shape the allocation of its capital for five years, that is almost the difference between the existence of the company and its demise.

The figures of consumers say it all too. GlobalData's analysis of the top five multinational packaged goods companies, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Unilever and Reckitt, reveals that the group's share of the China market has been declining year-on-year and has dropped to over 4.3 percent, a figure that would have seemed unimaginable a decade ago when China was the world's leading contributor of premium sales in the beauty and infant nutrition categories. Instead India's contribution to the same basket has been slowly but surely rising, and it is in baby-care, cosmetics, household products and beverages where the rural presence is still low to give years of runway.

L'Oreal has been more forthright about the transition than anyone. Its chief executive last year announced that the group had reduced its forecast for growth in the world's beauty market because China had gone flat after years of double-digit growth, a market that had been expected to overtake the United States as the world's biggest market for cosmetics. Since then, the company's regional leadership has cited the Middle East, Southeast Asia and India as the region's businesses that are now expected to drive growth, saying in the words of one regional president that "demographics eventually win. Nestle's own China results over the last 2 years have been close to flat, with premium lines (infant formula, pet food) holding while mass-market lines (prune milk, congee etc.) have faltered. Unilever has said sales through its Chinese retail channels are down to about one percent.Chinese retail sales growth is down to about one percent from what Unilever used to book routinely, it said.

There are also some tensions within India. Nestle India's management has admitted publicly to a slowdown this year, after a decline in its tracking results at Nielsen and a drop in food inflation from double-digit levels to single digits, which has affected the country's household budgets. Rural spending has been affected at times by erratic monsoons, while the volume growth of the overall FMCG basket is now pencilling in the mid-single digits, down from the double-digit levels enjoyed by companies a few years ago. None of this has, however, done anything to chip away at the underlying calculus. In many large categories, penetration is still in the mid-fifties percentile, estimates suggest, which translates to tens of millions of households that have not purchased a branded product in categories that are deemed “basics” by the multinationals. This space doesn't exist anymore in urban China.

The argument is following the money. Hindustan Unilever has invested approximately 2000 crores in two years to ramp up manufacturing in the premium beauty, wellbeing and home care segment, based on both increased willingness of Indian consumers to go upmarket and automation. Nestle India had a massive boost in quarterly profits earlier this year thanks to the tax cuts that increased consumers' disposable income and its investment in rural areas and also in the budding fast commerce vertical, which is an unexpected space in Indian cities for packaged goods. Premium beauty companies around the board have seen their growth in China slip into single digits while emerging markets dominated by India have seen growth in the high single to low double digits, with some seeing two to three times the growth of their developed market peers.

It is not so much a choice by a company, as the restructuring of consumer capital investment as a whole in the world. The tension between Washington and Beijing has also brought an extra dimension that has been choking Chinese demand, as factories continue to churn out cheaper products for export markets, sometimes at Indian's expense, as in steel and chemicals. In consumer goods, however, it is easier to read: China's aspirational shopper of the 2010s is gone, and India's consumer, despite his or her current price sensitivity, has a trajectory that is unmatched by any other nation at this scale. China inscribed the last decade of growth on the boardroom slideshows.