2. HNWI Spending

Up to 2023, despite the challenging context, the research conducted on high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) showed resilient and increasing spending. However, this trend changed in 2023, with a drop in average expenditure of 32% to $363,905. This average was influenced by reduced spending at the highest levels, with the median expenditure of HNWIs falling less significantly, from $50,165 in 2022 to $50,000 in 2023. The median expenditure for the first half of 2024 (at $25,555), if indicative of the level for the second half of the year, could reflect a stable annual level of spending.

While younger HNWIs had some of the biggest increases in average spending overall up to 2022, this was reversed in 2023, and the key driver of the decline was the 50% decrease in spending by millennial respondents to $395,000. With low growth of 3% year-on-year, Gen X respondents had the highest average spending in 2023 ($578,000), and their lead continued in the first half of 2024, with levels over a third higher than millennials and double that of Boomers and Gen Z.

HNWIs from Mainland China had the highest expenditure on art and antiques in 2023, as well as the first half of 2024, with a median of $97,000, more than double that of any other region. This suggests that the strong return to spending post-lockdown has been sustained despite worries of a slowdown in the market.

Over three-quarters of HNWIs had purchased a painting in both 2023 and the first half of 2024. Works on paper were also popular, with over half the sample active in this medium in 2023, up from 33% in 2022, and prints showed an uplift to 35%. The increasing participation in these mediums, while paintings and sculptures declined, is likely to have contributed to greater buoyancy at the lower end of the art market, with more sales at lower prices and less activity at the top.

Many HNWIs were open to exploring new artists and they play a critical role in supporting artists' careers at early and later stages. Just over half (52%) of expenditure by HNWIs in 2023 and 2024 was on works by new and emerging artists (from 44% in the previous survey); 21% was on mid-career artists’ works (down by 6%); and 26% was on those by established, top-tier artists (down by 2% on 2023 and 5% on 2022). The majority of spending on top-tier artists’ works was on those by living artists (17%), while deceased artists’ works accounted for 9%.

The share of works by female artists in the collections of HNWIs rose to a ratio of 44% versus male artists’ works in 2024, its highest level in seven years, up from 33% in 2018. The share of spending on female artists’ works was also 44% versus 56% on those by male artists. HNWIs who had spent over $10 million on art and antiques so far in 2024 had devoted a considerably larger share to female artists (52%) and those spending between $1 million and $10 million were 50:50 (versus 44% on female artists in the lower segments).