When 23-year-old concert enthusiast Ye Meng travels across China to watch live performances, she rarely packs a professional camera. Instead, she rents one.

A high-end camera body and telephoto lens can easily cost tens of thousands of yuan, yet may only be used a handful of times each year. Renting a flagship smartphone and long-range lens for a weekend concert costs her just more than 300 yuan ($44).

"The equipment would spend most of the year sitting idle at home," Ye said. "Renting what I need when I need it makes much more sense."

Her choice reflects a broader shift in China's consumer landscape, where ownership is increasingly giving way to access. From cameras and designer clothing to robots, office equipment and artificial intelligence computing power, a growing number of Chinese consumers are choosing to rent rather than buy.

According to a white paper jointly released by the State Administration for Market Regulation and Ant Group, China's rental economy surpassed 4.2 trillion yuan in transaction value in 2024, up 32 percent from a year earlier.

More than 750 million user transactions were recorded during the year, with digital platforms accounting for about 65 percent of total market activity.

The trend is being driven largely by younger consumers. People under the age of 30 now account for more than 60 percent of users in the rental market, according to data from a rental platform.

Li Lu, director of social governance research of the National Development and Reform Commission's Institute of Social Development, said: "Rental services increasingly represent a rational economic choice for consumers seeking better value and lower waste."

Li said that the range of products available for rent has expanded rapidly beyond traditional categories such as housing and automobiles. Today, consumers can rent cameras, luxury handbags, toys, drones, camping equipment, gaming consoles and even humanoid robots, she added.

Notably, as artificial intelligence applications spread across industries, demand for rented graphics processing units and computing power from individual users and small businesses has steadily increased.

Robot rental platform Botshare said it received more than 1,000 orders during the Spring Festival holiday period of this year. Chief Executive Li Yiyan said orders during the holiday period increased nearly 70 percent from the comparable period previously.

Data from online rental platforms show strong demand for portable digital cameras among Generation Z travelers, those born between 1995 and 2012. In many cases, users initially rent equipment before eventually purchasing it, creating what industry participants describe as a "rent before you buy" consumption pathway.

The trend is also creating opportunities well beyond rental transactions themselves.

As the market expands, businesses providing logistics, maintenance, refurbishment, valuation and resale services are benefiting from growing demand.

That transition aligns with policymakers' efforts to strengthen domestic demand and boost the services sector, which has become increasingly important as China seeks new drivers of economic growth.

"Rental platforms are helping create integrated ecosystems that combine products, services and data, while enabling more businesses to lease not only physical equipment but also digital tools, software platforms and computing resources," Li said.