By Li Hongmei

The Americas, Southeast Asia and Africa are overtaking China's position in the world's luxury goods market. A report from Boston-based management consulting firm Bain & Company shows that growth in these markets exceeded that of China, according to Shanghai-based First Financial Daily.

The US firm said the global luxury market's growth this year is likely to slow down from 10% in 2012 to 2%, or 217 billion euros (US$290 billion), a deceleration mainly triggered by a dip in the growth of China's luxury goods market last year. Market growth slowed from 30% in 2011 to 7% in the second half of 2012 after China launched an anti-extravagance policy.

Bain & Company predicted the figure will decline further to around 4%. The market has passed the stage of rapid expansion to consolidate its current state, especially for those major luxury brands which have been in the Chinese market for years.

Increasing number of Chinese tourists also chose to buy luxury goods abroad, which also contributed to the decline of China's luxury goods market. Over half of luxury goods in Europe are reportedly purchased by Chinese tourists. The money they spent there on luxury goods is equivalent to the whole US luxury goods market, said Bain & Company.

Angela Ahrendts, Burberry's CEO, said the slow growth in the Chinese luxury goods market is likely to be persistent. Although that may not affect the country's dominance in the global luxury goods market, countries in Latin America and Indonesia may catch up to China's market position.

Many luxury brands have opened branches in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand since Southeast Asia gained a new momentum in Asia's luxury goods market. Africa's luxury goods market has also gradually expanded from South Africa and Morocco to Nigeria and other countries. The Boston market research firm predicted that the growth of the Southeast Asian and African luxury markets will reach 11%.