China Sees Boom in Home use Beauty Devices

Wang Jixing

China Information Center of Daily Chemical Industry

Nowadays, more and more office ladies have stopped to visit beauty salon—not because they have stopped investing in skin care, but since they rely on a set of highend self-aesthetic devices instead to look after their skin.Ranging from a rechargeable sonic skin cleansing brush to a microcurrent-generating facial massage roller, many avid users of advanced home use beauty care devices that have been garnering high popularity both in China and around the globe. Despite their relatively high pricing,home use beauty devices have managed to strike the right chord with modern consumers. 2 in 3 Chinese women use (or will use) beauty devices at home.

Beauty spenders seeking simpler, time-efficient skin and body care treatment at home purchase self-aesthetic devices, such purchasing decisions are reflected by the rising sales of beauty devices in Chinese market.

Though these home care devices are pretty pricy,they are a much cheaper option than regular visits to a skin clinic. Though the treatment effects may not be as dramatic or immediate (as professional care), the convenience and time saved are huge benefits.

The most popular technologies in this sector include:

• Light therapies to treat acne, psoriasis, eczema, vitiligo,and other skin diseases

Figure 1. In salon VS. at home treatment

• Laser and LED masks and devices to treat wrinkles,blemishes, rosacea, and other cosmetic concerns

• Radio frequency and sonic brushes that clean pores and stimulate circulation to reduce the frequency of breakouts

• Laser and LED devices for skin tightening and hair removal

Current market overview

According to a post on Kline Blogs, China is the key for home use beauty device—a much-speculated on growth area of the beauty industry. In “Consumer Research for Home use Beauty Devices Points to China,” Kline analysts note, “According to our recently completed consumer research on home use beauty devices usage, all signs point to China as being the most opportunistic market for beauty device marketers, as well as for brands that address a myriad of beauty issues. The younger population are the ultimate “beauty junkies.”

The growing popularity for using home use beauty device continues in China, driven by the ever-increasing number of new brands and products entering the market.Women who are comfortable with technology are initially more open to trying these products, women in all age demographics beginning to adopt there products into their daily routine.

Increasing prevalence of skin diseases, surging disposable income, escalating geriatric population,and growing appearance consciousness in people and awareness about home use beauty device, and expanding product portfolio of market players are the key factors driving the market growth.

According to Euromonitor, facial cleansing device and personal care device (including shaving, hair removal and oral care) have grown at a compound annual rate of 11 %and 8 % respectively over the past two years in China. It estimated that the total sales will reach RMB 3.17 billion by 2020 (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Saies and forecast of home use beauty devices in China, 2014～2022

China’s home use beauty device market has experienced considerable growth over the past several years. 2013 was an important year for the Chinese home use beauty device market. In 2013, the Swedish brands such as Foreo and Clarisonic entered the Chinese market.However, consumers talked about beauty devices on social media before, and beauty devices have entered the Chinese market via daigou and overseas shopping websites. In 2014, “facial cleaning device” was a popular Baidu searched keyword. It proves that consumers have already recognized the facial cleaning devices.

2017 can be regarded as the year of the explosion of the growth of home use beauty device in the Chinese cosmetics market (Figure 3). All thanks to the outstanding contribution of the online beauty blogger. In the Internet era, online beauty bloggers and celebrities are playing an ever greater role in the Chinese cosmetics market.

Figure 3. Growth rate of beauty devices in Chinese market, 2014～2017

Consumer awareness

New consumption upgrading of the Chinese middle class will bring new business opportunities for beauty industry. Home use beauty devices not only allow the convenience and privacy of in home treatment, but also save those seeking spa-quality beauty devices, the time and expense involved in visiting a spa or salon. Driven by the strong demand for beauty, known as the “enjoy a luxurious salon experience in the comfort and privacy of your own home”, home use beauty devices emerged in 2017. Many foreign brands entered the Chinese market.Most women cited the Internet as the most common source for investigating both how to treat their skin care concerns and for information on which home use beauty devices are best for their needs. The Chinese online retailers saw the opportunity, and actively provide the e-commerce platforms for these brands.

According Baidu Index, it can be found that from July 2016 to September 2017, the search index of “beauty devices” online once year-on-year surge.

According to Euromonitor, as early as 2014, beauty device has become the champion online sale of small home appliances category, and the total online retail sales was over 75 million units.

According to a market report published by Persistence Market Research “Global Market Study on Beauty Devices: Asia to Witness Highest Growth by 2020,”the global beauty devices market was valued at USD 19,389.1 million in 2014 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.7% from 2014 to 2020, to reach an estimated value of USD 54,186.9 million in 2020. And it is estimated that the global beauty devices market will reach RMB 300 billion yuan by 2020, among which China’s market capacity is considerable. In addition, according to Tmall Global, the transaction volume of beauty devices imported into Tmall Global in 2017 was 8 times than the previous year.

Consumers who buy home-use beauty devices

Consumption by young-generation Chinese consumers is growing. Unlike other countries, the largest consumer of beauty devices are Chinese young-generation.

Anti-aging devices rank highly in China with product sales soaring by 33%. This is not a surprise as Kline’s recently published “Beauty Devices: Global Consumer Insights” report, where 1,300 women across key markets for beauty devices were asked to describe their attitudes,usage, and perceptions towards such beauty gadgets,shows that women in China are very concerned about aging and more inclined to use a device than any other country examined. Of the 76% of women who said they have aging concerns, nearly 50% of them use devices.

The Chinese general agent of Japanese beauty and health equipment maker ya-Man Ltd. said, in Japan, the main users of their products are people over 35. While in China, the brand’s main consumers are under the age of 25, who are most willing to invest in beauty. Fear of getting older makes young Chinese women major users of beauty devices.

young Chinese women in tier 1 and tier 2 cities are the major groups driving beauty devices consumption in China.

Chinese beauty devices consumers are relatively younger than their overseas peers. To take one example,the Chinese consumers who buy massage instrument and RF beauty devices are over 25 years, 10～ 15 years younger than consumers in other countries.

This is related to the younger consumers of the whole high-end cosmetics in China. According to the 2016 research of Kantor, as the main force of cosmetic consumption, young Chinese consumers, from 20～29 years old, have become a critical driving force for consumption. They are more likely than older generation to love luxury brands.

China’s post-80s and post-90s generation show different consumption behaviors and attitudes from previous generations. They grew up in an era of rapid wealth growth, and are more willing to spend money. An interesting characteristic of Chinese luxury consumers is that they are comparably younger than their European and American counterparts — 45%of Chinese luxury consumers are under the age of 35, they are on average 14 years younger than their European counterparts, and 25 years younger than their American counterparts.

Figure 4 shows the average annual retail sales growth rate in percent in urban from 2016 to 2017. Tier 2 and tier 3 cities are key markets for home use beauty devices.

Competitive landscape

The Chinese beauty devices market is far from saturated even though there are leading brands such as Clarisonic, FOREO, ReFa, ya-Man, HITACHI and TriPollar. At present, home use beauty devices are in the midst of a sales explosion. According to Tmall, there is still 5～10 times of development space for beauty category in the future.

With the development of the beauty devices market,there are two major devices — face cleansing device and beauty device. Among them, the price of beauty device is higher and the consumer group is smaller. While, the face cleaning device covers a crowd more extensive.

Figure 4. Average annual retail sales growth rate by city, 2016～2017

Table 1. Main home use beauty devices brands in China

Main brands in China

It’s estimated that at present, more than 15 international professional beauty device brands, such as Clarisonic,FOREO, ya—Man, ReFa CRAFT, TriPollar stop, NuFace,MDNA SKIN, Hitachi, NEWA, iluminage, Beauty Bar, The Beautools Rocklean, Dr. Arrivo, Silk’n face tite, and Exideal,are sold on the Chinese market. There are also local brands such as Mushu, Kingdom, DanLong and CosBeauty, as well as international household electric appliance brands such as Panasonic and Philips (Table 1 and Figure 5).

Furthermore, consumer appliance manufacturers have also been moving into this field, with Conair and Hitachi launching facial cleansing brush devices in 2012, Philips releasing its much-acclaimed VisaPure facial cleansing brush in 2013, and Braun introducing its own version in 2014. Investment from consumer appliance manufacturers has also been in the form of collaboration with beauty players. Some key examples include the Panasonic and Shiseido set of Ultrasonic Moisturising devices using Shiseido Aqualabel Moisture Lotion and the Clarisonic and Lancôme facial cleansing device set. Collaborations have the benefit of driving sales for both brands with less investment risk and financial cost.

Figure 5. Comparison of brand awareness

In addition, some cosmetics brands, such as Clinique,Olay, SK-Ⅱ, Neutrogena, etc., which added beauty devices category to their product assortments to meet the needs of young consumers, earn significant sales and profits.Clinique launched its first facial cleansing device—Clinique Sonic System Purifying Cleansing Brush in 2014.In the second half of 2017, Neutrogena launched its new beauty device—Visibly Clear Light Therapy Acne Mask.In the same time, Olay introduced Olay Magnemasks Infusion, and P&G’s SK-II launched an anti-aging beauty tool—Magnetic Booster (magnetic seismic import instrument).

Among the beauty devices brands, the imported brands are undoubtedly the big winners in 2017 in terms of sales value.

Clarisonic is loved by many consumers in China. In 2017, its market sales in China increased much more sharply than expected. CRAFT’s first-quarter of 2017 revenue of Tmall flagship store rose 1600%. The total global sales of ya-man in 2016 was RMB 1.3 billion, and the sales in China accounted for more than 10%, reached nearly RMB 200 million.

Overall, on the one hand, foreign brands by virtue of their technologies and design advantages firmly control the high-end market; Local brands, on the other hand, are flooding the mid- and low-end market.

Clarisonic

However, Foreo is not the only brand to capitalize on limited edition products. L’Oréal Group offers its skin care devices under the brand Clarisonic, the leading cleansing device marketer; the company offers a range of products under this brand, such as Clarisonic Mia 1, Clarisonic Mia 2, and Clarisonic Mia 3. However, L’Oréal’s hair care device offerings are fewer in number as compared to its skin care devices.

Philips

In terms of product offerings, Philips is the leading player in the market, offering products for hair removal,skin care, and hair care. Philips offers both skin care and hair care devices, such as hair dryers, pro straighteners,IPL hair removal devices, and epilators for hassle-free hair removal.

Foreo

It isn’t just a typical year for the beauty devices market in China, which has wavered between singledigit to low double-digit growth over the past few years.There are several factors driving this incredible growth of approximately 71% in 2017, but, undeniably, the Foreo brand plays the strongest role.

Relative newcomer Foreo has gone from being an unknown brand to the leading brand in the market with sales registering an incredible growth of over 300% to reach an estimated $85 million in 2017. This is in stark contrast to sales in the United States of $17 million. The reasons for growth are an expanding distribution network primarily through the direct channel, an increasing focus on marketing initiatives, and the launch of Luna Play Plus and Espada Acne Clearing Blue Light Pen. Price points also play a major role in the brand’s popularity.

In 2017, Foreo claimed the Number 1 position in the beauty device category in China with more than RMB 100 million sales on 11/11 Tmall Singles’ Day promotion.

The bestselling product of the day was the LUNA mini 2 — regularly 1,280 RMB — and its popularity on the November 11th shopping holiday helped make FOREO the only beauty device brand to enter the “Hundred Million yuan” club on Tmall which boasts just 167 members including Apple, Xiaomi and Nike. Only 18 beauty brands in total made it into the “Hundred Million yuan” club, including Estee Lauder, Shiseido and Elizabeth Arden, with Foreo topping the skincare devices list. This marks an unprecedented achievement for Foreo,which entered the Chinese market less than 4 years ago.

NuSkin

On the other hand, former leading marketer NuSkin loses market share due to the poor performance of its Galvanic Facial Spa and Galvanic Body Spa devices in the absence of any major breakthrough innovations in the recent past and their expensive positioning in the price-competitive market. However, the introduction of the AgeLoc LumiSpa in late 2017 is a saving grace that manages to generate $12.5 million for the marketer in its first quarter of sales in 2017.

Lumenis Ltd. offers a diverse range of devices for aesthetic treatments, which include ablative-skinresurfacing, acne-scars-treatment, blepharoplasty, laser hair removal, pigmentation, rosacea, scar revision, skintoning, tattoo removal, vascular leg vein, non-ablative skin resurfacing, and photorejuvenation. Some of its products are LightSheer DESIRE, a new generation of laser hair reduction system, ResurFX, LightSheer INFINITy, M22,and LightSheer Duet.

ReFa

ReFa, the high-end Japanese beauty device brand endorsed by Fan Bingbing, is familiar with Chinese female.

On 10 July 2018, MTG, the parent company of ReFa,went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. By the end of the day, the company had a market value of about 17 billion yuan.

In fact, ReFa has entered into an exclusive strategic partnership with Tmall Global since 2016. ReFa flagship store on Tmall contributes around 70 percent of China’s market share. According to the data of the first quarter of 2017, ReFa’s sales in China surged 1600%, driven by Tmall flagship store sales. Today, China’s e-commerce platforms played a significant part in taking MTG Company public.

In 2016, ReFa quickly boomed in China. The young consumers get input and awareness of the brand from the social media.

Local brands — Mushu

In the first half of 2015, many local beauty device brands entered the market at a lower price. The competition among local beauty device brands is getting increasingly fierce in the mid- and low-end market.

At present, the Chinese beauty device market has just started, there is no leading brand. Although the beauty device market share is small, beauty device still has a lot of room to grow, especially in the tier-1 and tier-2 cities.

As the first local beauty device brand now listed on the new third board, after two years of development, Mushu provides many beauty products, including skin detector,face steaming device, beauty devices, face cleansing instrument, eye massager and hair removal device.And the sales continue to multiply for years, in 2016, its performance increased by 4～5 times.

Mushu facial cleanser ranked the second place for the Most Popular Beauty Brand in 2015, becoming the only one on the list.

In the 2016 Double 11 Festival, the sales of Mushu facial cleanser exceeded 1 million units, and ranked No.3 in Tmall sub-category.

Some of the other key players operating in the beauty devices market are Panasonic Corporation, Lumenis Ltd,Home Skinovations Ltd, the Procter & Gamble Company,Syneron Medical Ltd, iluminage Beauty Inc., Koninklijke Philips N.V., and Carol Cole Company.

Tmall has boosted the popularity of beauty device in China

Brands look to capitalize on e-commerce boom in China.

On 3 August 2017, the Asian Beauty Device Alliance led by Tmall Global was founded in Tokyo, Japan.Five Japanese brands such as ReFa, Hitachi, Exideal,ARTISTIC&CO, ya-Man jointly announced that Tmall Global is their only official authorized platform in the Chinese market, and also joined Tmall Global Traceability Program to provide global protection service and worryfree after-sales service for Chinese consumers.

Actually, Tmall has started to boost the beauty device category since 2015. Clarisonic and ya-Man gradually opened official flagship stores on Tmall Mall and Tmall Global. In 2016, Japanese MTG Corporation(ReFa’s parent company) also reached exclusive strategic cooperation agreement with Tmall Global. Not only that,in order to tap the Chinese market, ReFa has opened many production lines exclusively for Tmall Global in Nagoya, Japan.

According to Tmall Global data, compared with last year, the transaction amount of imported beauty devices in Tmall Global had quadrupled in 2017. In 2017, the sales of import beauty devices on Tmall Global rose nearly 700%. During the 618 Mid-year Campaign, imported beauty devices outstripped sweeping robot in sales, and become the most popular import category for Chinese people. Refa, Hitachi, and other beauty device brands launched hundreds of beauty devices. Although the unit price was about 2,000 yuan, more than 5,000 high-end beauty devices were sold out in 24 minutes.

Today, Tmall continues to introduce and adjust its beauty device brands. Tmall said, this category will achieve a more than tenfold increase.

In August 2017, Tmall upgraded the beauty device from the secondary category to the first category, and transferred from the household appliances category to the beauty makeup category.

Maybe, the craze is just beginning. Earnings and sales grow slower in mature industries than in growth and emerging industries. It is difficult to find new growth opportunities in mature and well-serviced markets. The biggest advantage of beauty device is that the beauty device can segment requirements of deep clean, skin care,removing dark spots, whitening, moisturizing, and porerefining that skin care product emphasizes. From which,some selling points such as sound waves, light stream,electric current, stretching the muscles, and rotating brush are derived.

Taking Clarisonic as an example, since it first appeared in the Chinese market in 2013, it has launched seven new products. In 2017, it introduced a brand new device, the Smart Profile Uplift, a souped-up face massager designed to fight 15 signs of aging. Smart Profile Uplift is both a cleansing and anti-aging product with interchangeable face and body cleaning heads for anti-aging for face and neck.

The problems

The cost of persuade consumers to buy beauty devices for the first time is very high. Consumers always wonder whether the high-priced beauty devices are more effective,and rely on online reviews and user reviews before making a purchase. That means more effort is needed to engage and educate consumers. Compared with spending a lot of money on advertising, word of mouth marketing has an impact on business from increasing awareness to driving sales of beauty devices.

A search for “home use beauty device” in Taobao finds more than 20,000 itmes listed, many suspect. At present, good and bad are intermingled in the home use beauty device market. Brand names are better quality and more expensive, less known and fake brands’ price is low.As consumers, we need to be careful and smart.

Many dermatologists points out, home use beauty devices are small household appliance, and can only be used in daily skin care routine.

Reasonable concern is being voiced about the lack of specific safety standards and appropriate regulations for home use beauty devices, primarily motivated by the potential risk of eye and skin damage with device misuse.

At present, there is no official definition of “home use beauty device”. According to China’s Baidu Baike,beauty device is a kind of equipment that uses physics,electronic technology, optics and so on to treatment person appearance. In a broad sense, it includes two types: medical cosmetology instrument and home use beauty device. And in the field of daily life, the reporter interviews, everybody mentions cosmetology device to point to the home cosmetology device with relatively convenient operation more.

The definition of beauty device undefined, but even the classification is unclear. At present, there are no national beauty device industry standards. The beauty device is classified as a small home appliance, and follows the standards of electronic products, such as 3C authentication, etc. While some countries such as the United States and Japan have begun to set production quality standards for beauty devices.

In addition, another major problem beauty device brands are online brands that sell their products through internet retailer. The main consumers — young people prefer online shopping. Actually, according to an investigation, the expensive beauty devices with good effect are more suitable to be sold offline.

From 2016 to now, the number of home use beauty device brands has doubled. Moreover, Chinese consumers have not formed the habit of using beauty devices is also one of the reasons for restricting its development. Home use beauty device market is facing grim challenges and severer competition.

The regulatory environment

Reasonable concern is being voiced about the lack of specific safety standards and appropriate regulations for home use beauty devices, primarily motivated by the potential risk of eye and skin damage with device misuse.

In China, there’s no relevant regulation.

Trends

The developing trend toward personal Home use beauty device market is being boosted by the miniaturization of devices, as well as improvements in technology that ensure safety for home use. Especially facing intense competition from Japanese home use device, the Chinese home use beauty device is developing towards the direction of intelligence and simplicity.

Moreover, customization is the future of the home use beauty device industry.

When foreign brands flood into China and push Chinese consumers to get into the habit of using beauty devices, local brands are also actively going out to expend into overseas markets. Chinese brand DanLong has the Chinese largest and the world’s second largest manufacturing base. The share of exports of the Kingdom accounts for 70%, and the products are mainly exported to Japan, the United States, Russia and Australia.

Looking to the future

The market for home use beauty devices has steadily grown in China and spread around the world. China is the fastest growing personalized beauty markets. We are dealing with a new and fast emerging market, worth multi-millions of dollars every year. The home use beauty device category reflects the needs of an ageing, wealthy and wellness-oriented population.

Compared with developed countries, China’s beauty industry is in the irrational expansion stage. On the one hand, China’s economy has been developing steadily in recent years, and people’s living consumption level has been constantly improved. The new generation of consumers (under the age of 20) is the most Westernized and open to new products. These consumers pursue individualism and often use the Internet to follow global trends.

Now, there is a lack of industry standards. Due to the lack of research and innovation ability and theoretical system, the local home use beauty devices associated with being poor in quality. The local companies pursue short term profits, and lack of long-term strategic planning.

Only seizing new opportunities and providing products to meet consumer demand, can enterprises develop rapidly in a competitive marketplace.