The next 4 billion : market size and business strategy at the base of the pyramid

Four billion low-income people, a majority of the world's population, constitute the base of the economic pyramid. New empirical measures of their behavior as consumers and their aggregate purchasing power suggest significant opportunities for market-based approaches to better meet their needs, increase their productivity and incomes, and empower their entry into the formal economy. The 4 billion people at the base of the economic pyramid-all those with incomes below $3,000 in local purchasing power-live in relative poverty. Their incomes in current U.S. dollars are less than $3.35 a day in Brazil, $2.11 in China, $1.89 in Ghana, and $1.56 in India.1 Yet together they have substantial purchasing power: the BOP constitutes a $5 trillion global consumer market.