Nappies/Diapers/Pants in China

PRE-COVID-19 PERFORMANCE

Potential for growth despite falling number of newborns

Nappies/diapers/pants saw growth slow in both value and volume terms in 2019. Having seen a temporary rebound in 2016 immediately following the replacement of the one-child policy with a two-child policy, the number of newborns fell annually in the latter part of the review period, including a marked decline in 2018.

E-commerce continues to gain share

E-commerce overtook supermarkets to become the largest distribution channel for nappies/diapers/pants in 2016 and continued to make significant gains in value share in 2019. As well as business-to-consumer (B2C) activities, consumer-to-consumer (C2C) sales on WeChat, led by a few brands such as Care Daily and Solove/Miffy, also took share from store-based channels as the review period progressed.

Most leading brands struggle, though some premium labels buck trend

Procter & Gamble’s market-leading Pampers brand saw modest value growth in 2019, while most other leading brands, with a few notable exceptions, experienced decline. Pampers continued to recover from a slump in the middle of the review period thanks to the performance of its premium import line, Ichiban.

2020 AND BEYOND

COVID-19 impact

Sales of nappies/diapers/pants are expected to grow by 6% in 2019 constant value terms in 2020 overall in light of the impact of COVID-19. This is the same rise forecast in the 2020 edition of tissue and hygiene published in February 2020 (pre-COVID-19).

Affected products within nappies/diapers/pants

As in sanitary protection, nappies/diapers/pants sales are set to normalise quickly after initial stockpiling because of the limit on potential usage in the category, though the closure of nurseries and parents staying at home with their children have provided a slight boost to demand for products for domestic use.

Recovery and opportunities

Nappies/diapers/pants has not been significantly affected by COVID-19, and the category is expected to see significant growth over 2019-2024 as a growing number of busy parents are attracted to the convenience of disposable nappies/diapers. Disposable pants is expected to continue to emerge strongly, particularly as demand trends in major urban centres are mirrored in lower tier cities.

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