Market Overview

The domestic hair salon and barber shop market (based on the sales at salon operators) for FY2022 was estimated to have generated 2,070,400 million yen, 101.2% of the previous fiscal year. As FY2022 saw significant improvement in consumer sentiment after the ease of behavior restrictions stemming from corona crisis, which seemed to actually increase consumer spending. On the other hand, however, intermittently ever-rising prices of products and services led low-income population as well as middle-income population, which were said to considerably decreased, to be conscious for maintaining their current standards of living.

The corona crisis sparked the use of hairdressing appliances at home, which caused some consumers to refrain from visiting hair salons. Whatever the reasons, customers tended to become less frequent to visit salons. Increase in the number of low-price hair coloring salons gave rise to those customers who used to let everything done at general hair salons to stop using hair coloring service at such general hair salons, which reduced the unit price per customer at such salons. These factors showed that recovery in the hair salon and barbershop market was still underway.

Noteworthy Topics

Full-Scale Price Revisions

After the fall of 2022, price revisions at hair salons and barbers have been in progress. In addition to price rise of cosmetics used at salons, soaring expenses for fuel and light are the reasons. As overall price rise applies to many products and services, that at hair salons is likely to be accepted by users.

Still, the salons offering low-price services have targeted different customer groups from general hair salons, making it difficult to provide distinct price difference from competitors. Therefore, they are contemplating the timing to announce the specific price revisions. After corona crisis, return of customers to hair salons is obvious, but less frequency in visiting salons has been continuing, which also is the reason.  

The market for hair salons and barber shops is needed to carefully watch customer trend after the price rise.

Future Outlook

The domestic hair salon and barber shop market size (based on the sales at salon operators) for FY2023 is expected to be 2,090,000 million yen, 100.9% of the previous fiscal year. Of the total market size, that of barber shops is projected to be 590.200 million yen (100% on YoY), while that of hair salons is expected to be 1,499,800 million yen (101.3% on YoY).

For FY2023, as novel coronaviruses have been formally downgraded to “Class 5” in May, the same category as common infectious diseases such as seasonal influenza, the consumer sentiment seems to be back to normal in everyday lives. Many of hair salons and barber shops are likely to end their price revisions by the fall of 2023. Such price rise is expected to in part contribute to market expansion. That said however, the growth of barbershop market is still small, when compared to that of hair salons, which is projected for barbershop market to remain at the level of FY2022 or slightly rise.

Research Outline