Wipes in Dominican Republic

PRE-COVID-19 PERFORMANCE

Baby wipes top in 2019, but intimate wipes experience faster growth

Despite a slight decline in current value sales growth, wipes remained popular in 2019, particularly baby wipes. Baby wipes are typically used by parents in conjunction with nappies at home and/or on-the-go.

Narrow distribution continues to stifle widespread acceptance of personal wipes in 2019

Due to the relatively high unit prices, personal wipes tend to be sold primarily in modern grocery channels, especially larger supermarkets and hypermarkets, pharmacies and drugstores and health and beauty specialist retailers. For the most part, personal wipes are not available via the traditional retail channels, including independent small grocers— a significant proportion of the population still relied on independent small grocery retailers in 2019—a scenario that has hindered consumer access to personal wipes and stifled widespread consumer acceptance.

Kimberly-Clark continues to lead wipes in 2019

Kimberly-Clark retained its leadership in wipes in 2019 thanks in large part to the strong performance of its Huggies brand in baby wipes. Huggies is already a well-known and trusted brand in nappies/diapers/pants, so the Huggies name applied to baby wipes resonated amongst consumers.

2020 AND BEYOND

COVID-19 impact

Sales of wipes are now expected to grow by 3% in 2019 constant value terms in 2020 overall in light of the impact of COVID-19. This is comparable to the 3% rise forecast in 2019 constant value terms in our 2020 edition of tissue and hygiene published in February 2020 (pre-COVID-19).

Affected products within wipes

All types of wipes present in the Dominican Republic are expected to see growth over the forecast period, but this growth will be less due to the impact of the pandemic and more to factors such as price and increased availability. On the other hand, baby wipes continue to benefit slightly from the home seclusion trend as many parents staying at home for extended periods use baby wipes during more frequent nappy changes.

Recovery and opportunities

It is not expected that there will be any significant long-term impact on the performance of wipes as a result of COVID-19, although there may be some slight growth in general purpose wipes, antibacterial wipes and wipes for household cleaning as a result of hygiene-conscious but busy consumers discovering the convenient and time-saving qualities of wipes. Generally, demand for wipes is expected to grow as product knowledge increases and as wipes become more available as a result of the expansion of modern retail throughout the country.

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