While the US just celebrated national ice cream day this past Sunday, the country is no longer the biggest market when it comes to the frozen dessert. According to researchers at Mintel, China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest ice cream market for the first time.
Between 2008 and 2014, researchers say the total market value for ice cream sales in China has nearly doubled, soaring by 90 percent to reach $11.4 billion. Meanwhile, the US market has grown at a much slower rate, climbing by 15 percent over the same period to reach $11.2 billion.
However, US consumers still eat more ice cream than consumers in other countries. On average a typical US consumer will eat 18.4 liters of ice cream a year, compared to 4 liters per Chinese consumer. The top five ice cream markets by volume globally are China (5.9 billion liters), followed by the US (5.8 billion liters), Japan (784 million liters), Russia (668 million liters) and Germany (545 million liters).
More on Mintel’s ice cream research can be found here.