Market Overview

The toiletries market for FY2022 rose to 102.8% of the previous fiscal year to 2,119,638 million yen (based on the shipment value at manufacturers, a total of 50 items from 5 product categories), maintaining 2-trillion-yen level.
As pandemic restrictions have been lifted and people increasingly start to go out often, clothing related products like synthetic detergents for clothing is enjoying healthy sales. Additionally, as people became accustomed to wearing masks and using surface cleaners or disinfectant products for kitchen, bathroom and dining room, stable demand remained strong for sanitary products, including wet wipes.

Noteworthy Topics

Backed by Heightened Hygiene Awareness, Solid Demand Expected for Sanitizing and Sterilizing Products Even After End of COVID-driven Special Demand

Demand for home care products (kitchen sanitizers, residential detergents, etc.) and sanitizing products (wet wipes, etc.) grew significantly during the COVID-19 crisis in FY2020. Although the market showed negative growth afterwards due to a decline led by resolution of supply and demand tightness and end of stockpiling frenzy ('reactionary decline to special demand'), the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity for people to reaffirm the importance of prevention of contagious diseases caused by bacteria, such as O-157, in addition to those caused by virus like COVID-19, influenza, and norovirus. Demand has remained stable even after the relaxation of restrictions on activities in 2022, which led people to go out more often.
Backed by heightened hygiene awareness, the demand for sanitizing and sterilizing products is projected to grow steadily hereafter.

Future Outlook

The toiletries market for FY2023 is expected to attain 2,152,700 million yen, 101.6% of the previous fiscal year. Some items have been in high demand since the COVID crisis, and they continue to be so even after activity restrictions have been lifted. Meanwhile, there are also items that are in decline.
Going forward, toiletry manufacturers will be required to reformulate product strategies and sales strategies from a bird’s eye view to address both domestic market that is aging-and-declining, as well as overseas market. They also need to put efforts into addressing challenges associated with the “2024 issue” in domestic logistics industry by managing cost and improving operational efficiency. Furthermore, they need to introduce interactive digital platforms for increasing customer touchpoint, and respond to consumer buying trends, which is affected by a rise of retail price due to their shipment price revision. We are interested to see how these multiple factors will affect the toiletries market.

Research Outline