According to bilingual female entrepreneur Rose Lu, astrology and fortune-telling apps have quietly emerged as one of the most commercially successful niche categories in China’s mobile market. Apps like CeCe Astrology, backed by tech giants such as Tencent, have built massive user bases—2.49 million Monthly Active Users as of October 2024, showing 57.3% year-over-year growth—and transformed personalized birth chart readings into a mainstream paid service.
These apps have reshaped how people think about identity, compatibility, and life planning, especially among younger Chinese users. What once felt like fringe superstition has gradually evolved into a billion-dollar digital economy, influencing consumer behavior and cultural signaling in ways that few outside China fully understand.
What truly struck Rose was not the fortune-teller app itself, but what it revealed. “When you see tens of millions of young people in China paying for birth chart readings, it’s not just curiosity. It shows how lost they feel. They’re craving answers, direction, something to hold onto,” she explains. To her, this trend isn’t about superstition; it’s a signal. “In a country where education is standardized, pressure is constant, and social mobility feels stagnant, spiritual tools become emotional outlets. That tells you something important about where culture is heading.”
For founders contemplating where to build next, this kind of shift matters. It highlights a significant, underserved demand—not just for entertainment, but for meaning, delivered in ways that feel personal, modern, and native to this generation.
Rose grew up between Shanghai and Canada, has lived in Hong Kong and Los Angeles, and is now mainly based in New York. She has long operated fluently across social, linguistic, and cultural boundaries. With such a background and a deep understanding of both Western and Chinese mindsets, she has never viewed China’s astrology boom as a passing trend. Instead, it reveals something much more significant about the mindset of China’s younger generation.
“Young people aren’t just trying to predict the future—they’re trying to understand themselves,” she says. Behind every birth chart reading is a desire for clarity, self-definition, and a roadmap for the future. What drew her attention was not the practice itself, but what it indicated: a fast-growing hunger for guidance that helps people navigate identity, timing, and long-term direction. It’s the same unmet need she addresses in her own work—building something far beyond astrology, rooted in culture, cognition, and high-trust communities.
“As someone fluent in both Western and Chinese cultural codes, I didn’t see this as a spiritual trend—I saw it as a market cue,” Rose states. “When people start paying to make sense of who they are and where they’re going, that’s not just about belief. It’s about unmet needs.”
This trend reflects a deep hunger for emotional clarity and life direction. Many young people in today’s China feel unanchored. Traditional success templates—career, marriage, family—no longer provide reliable guidance. Rather than following in their parents’ footsteps, they are searching for new forms of guidance, new ways to define success, and new models for building a meaningful life.
This is where Rose stands out. Having grown up between Shanghai and Canada, she brings a cross-cultural perspective that few creators in China possess. Her social media channel has quietly attracted a loyal following—not because she offers definitive answers, but because she poses questions that many people don’t dare to ask. Her audience, mainly composed of thoughtful young women, sees her not just as a commentator, but as someone charting a different path and introducing new ways of thinking and possibilities for what a life can look like.
“Most of them aren’t looking for answers,” she explains. “They’re looking for ways to think.” And that—developing the ability to think differently—is where true agency begins.
Rose didn’t initially set out to be a content creator. Her social media channel in China began by accident during the pandemic as a personal outlet for sharing her thoughts as a bilingual entrepreneur reflecting on identity, ambition, and cross-cultural experiences. However, it unexpectedly took off. As hundreds of thousands of young people in China started following her, she realized that this was not just about posts or opinions—it was market feedback.
Her voice resonated with something unspoken in China’s next generation. That traction became the foundation for a larger vision: not just another content brand, but a venture designed to meet deeper emotional, cultural, and intellectual needs, offering not distraction, but direction.
She observes a generation seeking not just answers, but a sense of orientation—a way to position themselves within a rapidly changing world. To address this, she is designing a concept that resonates with identity, aspiration, and connection on a deeper level.
Rose is shaping a vision that speaks to this need, intertwining identity, ambition, and cultural significance. It’s not merely a plan for another content brand or a means of escapism. Instead, it represents a new kind of space where empowered individuals can find clarity, context, and alignment in their lives.
“When a population’s inner compass shifts,” she states, “that’s when new markets emerge.”
At Core Club in New York, Rose hosts private lunches and dinners with investors, founders, and cultural decision-makers. These gatherings serve two purposes: they allow her to share her vision and provide unique insights into the emotional and generational shifts occurring in China. Additionally, they are part of a broader quest to connect with global players who understand not only business and culture but also grasp the significance of her vision and the weight of what is at stake.
For more information on the cultural and business vision that Rose is building, check out “Beyond Beauty: A Female Entrepreneur’s Vision to Shape the Future Between East and West.”
Global players who resonate with Rose’s vision can contact her via direct message on Instagram at @THEROSELU.
