Female Consumption Power in China
Womenomics, also called sheconomics (Chinese: 她经济), refers to the consumption brought by women. In China, there are nearly 400 million female consumers aged 20-60, who contribute up to 10 trillion RMB of consumption expenditure every year [1], almost constitutes the world's third-largest* consumer market.
*The first and second largest consumer market in the world currently refers to the US ($5.75trillion in 2017) and China ($5.4trillion in 2017), respectively.
CBNData report points out [2] that in the past two years, skin-care, nutricosmetics, and other related categories have led to trillions of consumption growth. From 2013 to 2015, the beauty supplement market scale increased by 3.1 billion yuan [1]. Moreover, this category's consumption growth has been much higher than the average growth of all beauty products since 2018. It is estimated that the market size will reach 23.8 billion RMB (approx. $3.55billion) by 2022. Women are the main force of nutricosmetics consumption, and the proportion is increasing year by year, especially the post-90s women in the first and second-tier cities.
***Nutricosmetics: functional food which aims at skincare (whitening, spot-fading, anti-aging, etc.), body care, weight control, etc.
Health Food & Cosmetics Companies Dominate the Market
The domestic beauty supplement market is mainly dominated by two core players: traditional health care/functional food companies and cosmetic brands [2]. Health/functional food companies such as FANCL and Swisse featured prominently in the competition. The revenue of adult nutrition and care products represented by Swisse was 4.24 billion RMB (approx. $632.8mn), with a year-on-year increase of 24.3%.
On the other hand, Shiseido, Pola, Fancl, Sephora, Nordstrom, and other cosmetics brands are tapping into this market by launching new products. For example, in 2018, POLA sales value reached 15.0183 billion yen [1] (about $1.4billion), with a year-on-year increase of 4.3%.
As the most significant cross-border e-commerce platform in China, the consumption scale of nutricosmetics products on Tmall Global has increased year by year in recent three years [2]. The number of imported brands on Tmall Global has also increased significantly, making it a dominant nutricosmetics consumption channel. According to Tmall Global, the most popular countries for beauty supplements imports by Chinese consumers are Australia, Japan, Germany, France, and the US.
Despite the popularity of foreign brands in China's nutricosmetics market, domestic brands such as Marubi (丸美), which specializes in oral collagen liquid, and Xiaoxiandun (小仙炖), which focuses on selling bird's nest, have emerged with great potential. During the 2019 Double 11 Shopping Festival, the sales value of Xiaoxiandun on Tmall exceeded 100million RMB, becoming the first traditional nutritious brand to sell over 100mn RMB in China [3].
Prevalent Functions
According to the 2019 Beauty Supplements Consumption Trend Report released by CBNData [2], the four most attractive functions for consumers are whitening, anti-aging, hydrating, and anti-hair loss.
The growth rate of consumers of whitening products (beauty supplement) has increased significantly. In 2019, the growth rate exceeded the average growth rate of the nutricosmetics market, and the penetration rate was as high as 47% [2], which means that among every ten consumers in the beauty supplement market, about five people buy products with whitening function.
In terms of anti-aging products, collagen is the most popular ingredient [2].
Products containing hyaluronic acid have strong competitiveness among oral hydration products, and the market share kept increasing year by year [2].
In a survey on hair loss in 2018, more than three-quarters of the respondents had hair loss problems [2], which has become a growing concern among young Chinese. Therefore, oral beauty products with anti-hair loss functions are very popular in the market, with sales value increasing rapidly.
