US multicooker (Instant Pot) market revenue

Between 2012 and 2019, the number of Chinese students studying abroad and the revenue of the US multicooker market grew in near-perfect synchrony at r = 0.9666, which is the kind of finding that makes you wonder if international students were arriving in American dorm rooms, discovering that they could make congee in eight minutes, and calling home with purchasing advice. The Instant Pot became a genuine cultural phenomenon in the mid-2010s; Chinese enrollment at US universities did too. Whether anyone has studied the overlap in their Venn diagram is unknown. The data, however, is enthusiastic.

Chinese students studying abroad grew from roughly 700,000 in 2012 to nearly 1 million by 2019, driven by rising Chinese middle-class incomes, government education policies, and US university recruitment. The Instant Pot launched in 2010 and its market revenue grew explosively through the 2010s as the product went viral on social media and became a kitchen staple, peaking before market saturation set in post-2019. Both trends were products of the same decade of globalization, rising incomes, and technology adoption—and both flattened or reversed around 2019–2020 due to the US-China trade and visa environment and pandemic disruptions respectively.

Eight data points and an r of 0.9666 is the statistical equivalent of two people who happened to take the same bus every day for a week. The commute was real; the relationship is unconfirmed.