Chinese Mooncake Sales Drop While Lottery Ticket Sales Boom

Mei Xin mooncakes. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

China’s mooncake industry took a hit this year as consumer spending slowed amid a weak economy. Meanwhile, lottery ticket sales have surged as individuals with a bleak economic outlook place their bets on a more promising future.

Mooncakes are usually sold around the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, one of the most significant traditional festivals in Chinese culture, second only to the Chinese Lunar New Year in importance and popularity.

The Mid-Autumn Festival typically falls on the 15th day of the 8th month in the Chinese lunar calendar, which usually occurs in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. This year, the festival was observed on Sept. 29. It is a time when family members gather to celebrate the harvest, appreciate the beauty of the full moon, and enjoy mooncakes—a special pastry filled with various fillings.

Tight Budget

Mooncakes usually generate a lot of revenue annually. In August, the China Association of Bakery and Confectionery Industry released a report anticipating a 5 percent increase in this year’s mooncake sales.

However, online mooncake sales significantly declined compared to a year ago, and mooncake bakeries and shops in Beijing also saw sluggish sales, according to Chinese news portal Sohu.

For example, the e-commerce Joybuy platform sold approximately 91,000 boxes of mooncakes during this year’s Moon Festival, compared to 160,000 boxes sold in the same period last year, and total sales dropped by 55 percent as of mid-August, according to the report.

Pre-order sales were also down. For example, a bank in Guangzhou city decreased its regular order from thousands of boxes to a few hundred this year, reported China Press on Sept. 29.

Zheng Xuguang, a political and economic expert on China, told The Epoch Times that the reduced mooncake orders show that various industries and companies could be struggling to stay afloat and need to cut expenses amid the economic slowdown.

Last year, the COVID-19 lockdowns did not affect mooncake production and sales.

According to various Chinese media reports, Chinese mooncake production increased from 328,000 tons in 2015 to 437,000 tons in 2022; sales increased from $1.83 billion in 2015 to $3.39 billion in 2022.

A woman looks at decorative lanterns with messages of goodwill on display for the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Fortress Hill area in Hong Kong on Oct. 4, 2020. Jayne Russell/AFP via Getty Images

Playing the Lottery

In stark contrast, lottery ticket sales saw a year-on-year increase of 53.6 percent, with nationwide lottery sales of 52.96 billion yuan (about $7.25 billion), according to data released by the Ministry of Finance in August.

Chinese netizens noted that an increasing number of people are lining up to buy lottery tickets in shopping malls.

“It looks like many are dreaming of getting rich,” one social media user wrote, according to Hong Kong Economic Journal.

China affairs commentator Wang He told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2 that Chinese people are worried about their future.

“When people see no hope, they tend to rely on their luck, such as winning a lottery ticket.” It indicates the entire society has “lost its momentum and confidence in the future,” he said.

Yi Ru and Huang Yun contributed to this report.