As consumers' awareness of oral health increases, the electric toothbrush market is growing rapidly, and more and more companies are entering the industry. For a time, electric toothbrushes became the new favorite in the consumer market. Is this product popular relying on marketi

As consumers' awareness of oral health increases, the electric toothbrush market is growing rapidly, and more and more companies are entering the industry. For a time, electric toothbrushes became the new favorite in the consumer market. Is this product popular relying on marketing or real power?

sales data has increased rapidly

China is the country with the largest demand for toothbrushes in the world and the country with the largest production and sales of toothbrushes. In recent years, the demand for electric toothbrushes has also increased. The China Home Appliances Association revealed that in 2017 and 2018, domestic electric toothbrush sales reached 3.2 billion yuan and 4.8 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 70% and 50% year-on-year.

At the same time, the penetration rate of electric toothbrushes in the Chinese market is also increasing year by year. Data shows that the penetration rate of China's electric toothbrush market in 2018 was 6%~8%, and it is expected that the penetration rate will increase to 8%~10% by 2020, and the industry's average annual compound growth rate will reach 40%~50%.

As early as 2015, the penetration rate of electric toothbrushes in the United States reached 42%, and the penetration rate in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and other countries was also between 30% and 40%, and some even reached 50%. In contrast, China's electric toothbrush market still has a lot of room for growth, so its prospects are optimistic. Some institutions predict that the size of China's electric toothbrush market will reach 50 billion yuan in 2020.

electric toothbrush consumers are mainly young people. Among them, the post-95s account for 40%, the post-90s (excluding post-95s) account for 22%, the post-80s account for 26%, and other groups account for 12%. The post-95s are the main consumers of electric toothbrushes, which prompts the appearance and color of electric toothbrushes to develop in a more fashionable direction.

alternative marketing, Internet celebrities' sales power highlights

This year's Tmall "618" promotion, and electric toothbrushes performed very well. However, except for some leading electric toothbrush companies, the marketing methods of most manufacturers are interesting.

Some electric toothbrush brand manufacturers have previously cooperated with dental hospitals, but the effect is not particularly obvious. With the rise of the Internet celebrity economy, manufacturers have begun to choose to cooperate with Internet celebrities.

For a time, big Vs and celebrity bloggers on various platforms recommended electric toothbrushes. There is a common model for this type of promotion: firstly, it is imported from a personal story, the blogger will tell fans the importance of dental health, then introduce the functions and usage experience of the brand's electric toothbrush, and finally issue coupons. According to the blogger's "status", you can get rewards ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of yuan for brand promotion or get a commission of several dozen yuan per order. Relying on this kind of promotion method, the sales of electric toothbrushes of various manufacturers have increased significantly. However, can electric toothbrushes that rely on marketing to sell goods really make a profit?

According to industry insiders, the gross profit margin of electric toothbrushes is very high. Electric toothbrushes on the market price may be around 170 yuan, and electric toothbrushes with a price of around 300 yuan may cost less than 100 yuan. Driven by high gross profit, hundreds of new brands have emerged in China's electric toothbrush market in the short term.

is seriously homogeneous, and the products are uneven. It is worth noting that these hundreds of brands mainly rely on more than 20 domestic OEM factories. This means that the homogeneity of electric toothbrush products in the industry is serious.

Currently, in the Chinese electric toothbrush market, there are mainly two competitive forces: foreign brands and domestic brands. With the entry of more new forces, the uneven products and market chaos are becoming increasingly serious. The main foreign brands in the Chinese market include Sony, Colgate , Philips, Ole B, Bayer, Panasonic , Cres, squid, Omron, etc. The main domestic brands include Shuke , Fanpu, Roman, Libode , etc. Generally speaking, the price of electric toothbrushes of domestic brands will be slightly lower, while the price of foreign brands will be slightly higher, with the unit price ranging from hundreds to thousands of yuan.

However, electric toothbrushes are currently a relatively scattered market, with the market share of the top brands not exceeding 8%, and the top ten brands account for less than 50%, which gives more latecomers the opportunity to enter the market. Therefore, the trend of domestic enterprises entering the electric toothbrush market is obvious.

It is gratifying that on September 2, 2019, the electric toothbrush group standard for T/CHEAA 0009-2019 "Electric Toothbrush" was officially released and will be implemented from now on.This standard not only specifies relevant terms, classification, performance requirements, inspection rules, etc., but also explains in detail the safety requirements for electric toothbrushes. It also proposes that the sound power level noise of the swinging (sonic type) electric toothbrush should be ≤65dB(A), and the sound power level noise of the rotary electric toothbrush should be ≤72dB(A). I believe that the release of industry standards will bring a new order to the electric toothbrush market.

Electric toothbrush supply chain introduction

·Core advantages of electric toothbrush

Electric toothbrushes on the market are mainly divided into rotary and sound wave.

rotary type is represented by Braun's Ole B. The brush head is round, and the teeth are rubbed by counterclockwise rotation of the brush head to achieve the effect of cleaning teeth. At present, its 3D brush head has added high-frequency vibration in the up and down directions based on left and right rotation; the sound wave type is represented by Philips' Sonicare, which is flat, and there is a small vibration motor inside the toothbrush, which can make the brush head swing at a high frequency of 5 mm perpendicular to the direction of the brush handle. Relatively speaking, rotary electric toothbrushes clean the tooth surface more vigorously, but also wear more to teeth, and it is more suitable for people with insensitive teeth.

For many consumers, the core competitiveness of electric toothbrushes is to quickly and fully clean teeth. The three major factors of electric toothbrushes are the keys that directly affect their cleaning strength. The faster the toothbrush head swings, the more times the toothbrush head cleans teeth within the same time. Of course, it is not that the higher the frequency, the better. Many people with sensitive teeth cannot actually use toothbrushes with toothbrushes that are too frequent and have too strong cleaning power. At present, the number of vibrations of mainstream electric toothbrushes in one minute is 15,000-31,000 times, and consumers can purchase according to their needs.

At present, some electric toothbrush manufacturers on the market have begun to try to add Bluetooth connection function, which can be bound to the APP to collect various data when users brush their teeth. However, Bluetooth is connected before brushing each time, which seems to reduce the efficiency of the electric toothbrush. The editor of "International Electronic Commerce Information" believes that the practicality of this function remains to be studied.

·The core components of electric toothbrushes

As a small household appliance product, electric toothbrushes are also composed of electronic components and various components, including dry battery , battery box, micro DC motor , metal guard plate, sleeve, brush head and charging device. The core is dry battery and micro DC motor. The dry battery is installed in the battery box as a power supply and a DC motor. There is a switch on the battery box that controls the power supply of the DC motor. The shaft of the DC motor extends out of the battery box. The brush head and metal guard plate are installed on the motor shaft. There is a sleeve outside the brush head and metal guard plate.

Take Ole B electric toothbrush as an example. The brand's toothbrush adopts an inductive charging design. Its base contains a set of coils and a metal core, and the toothbrush contains another set of coils. When the toothbrush is inserted on the charger, the toothbrush and the base form a dual transformer, and the charge between the two can also flow. Since there is no metal contact point between the toothbrush and the base, various problems caused by water inlet at the contact point and short circuit of the charger are avoided.

· Electric toothbrush supplier distribution area

Although there are many brands of electric toothbrushes on the market, the number of OEM factories is limited, with only about 20. At present, the domestic electric toothbrush supply chain is concentrated in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas and the Pearl River Delta areas. Among them, Shenzhen has more than 10 large factories including Foxconn, Jinjin, Xigao, Xinwangda, etc. In addition, there are many supply chain manufacturers specializing in the manufacturing of electric toothbrushes. Electric toothbrush brands such as Usmile, Oklin, Lanxi, and Sushi all have office spaces here.

Electric toothbrush industry chain enterprise inventory (part):

1. Procter & Gamble (China) Co., Ltd.

Ole-B was previously owned by Gillette. With Gillette being acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2005, Ole-B was merged into Procter & Gamble. In 2000, Orle B released its first electric toothbrush, and has now become a leading global professional oral care brand. Its launch of the world's first Bluetooth smart toothbrush has opened up a new field of intelligence. It is understood that Orle-B is the leader in the global general toothbrush and electric toothbrush market, with the highest market share in the toothbrush market with a turnover of up to 4.5 billion.

2.PHILIPS Philips