Mitch Barns, president of The Nielsen Company, Greater China, debunked the eight most common myths about the role innovation plays in the Chinese consumer products sector.

The emerging story in China is how development has spread throughout the country, growing a middle class that has the ability to spend. Residents of lower-tier cities and even those living in rural areas now have greater buying power thanks to economic growth and improving wages.

Boasting the largest Internet community in the world with over 420 million online users, China’s online community has shown steady double-digit user growth rates over the past five years.

China’s digital media landscape is among the fastest growing and advancing markets in the world. This profound digital revolution has created Chinese consumers who are experiencing new and advanced media experiences.

China’s economic growth has led to massive expansion across all consumer categories as its citizens become more affluent, and, in many cases, have discretionary income for the first time. But one sector stands out for growth even in China: automobile sales.

More than 1,000 attendees across 420 media, fast-moving consumer goods, auto, financial services and retailing business sectors joined forces at the first-ever Nielsen China Forum where insights transformed into actionable strategies for how to win in China.

Third quarter 2010 data shows a divided Europe. Turkey and Slovakia continue to demonstrate a strong recovery, followed by the UK, though growths here are predominantly driven by inflation.

Discover how winning CPG manufacturers were able to decrease their number of stock-keeping units (SKUs) while increasing market share. On average, these winners realized an 8% greater reduction in SKUs and 5% higher sales than others in their category, and they increased overall category size.

While most manufacturers believe that their strategic collaboration efforts are effective, only 20% of these efforts achieve significant impact. Learn how winning CPG manufacturers achieved an average sales lift that was 11 percentage points higher than other collaboration efforts.

Find out how some CPG manufacturers were able to increase their unit prices by three percentage points more than the average unit-price increase for their category and grow their category share by 2%.