Issues to Solved in Rising 10-billion-yuan Beauty Device
- Chaileedo Press
- Dec 7, 2022
- 5 min read
Driven by the beauty economy, China's home care beauty device market is estimated to reach 25.1 billion yuan (about $3.6 billion) to 37.4 billion yuan (about $5.4 billion) in 2025. However, industry chaos also occurs frequently behind the rapid development. Recently ReFa, Miss Arrivo and other well-known beauty device brands were punished for violations.
Recently, Japanese home care beauty device brand, YA-MAN, announced its financial results for the period from May to October 2022. During the reporting period, YA-MAN's consolidated net profit soared 62% year-on-year to 4.5 billion yen (approximately $32.7 million), a record high.
It is worth noting that the report also highlighted that its performance in China's e-commerce channel was better than expected, with sales of beauty devices during the Chinese Double 11 Shopping Festival contributing to revenue growth. YA-MAN’s products were selling well on Tmall.
AMIRO, another local Chinese beauty device brand, also announced its results during Chinese Double 11 Shopping Festival this year, saying that its omni-channel sales this year were more than 10 times than the same period last year. Its 15-minute sales exceeded the full period of last year's Double 11 sales and its 33-minute sales broke 100 million yuan (about $14.3 million).
As overall performance of beauty companies are undertaking pressure, beauty device brands such as YA-MAN, AMIRO still can have such a high volume and maintain high growth. So how exactly is the current Chinese beauty device market?
Chinese tens-of-billion-yuan beauty device market at high speed
According to data from the Qianzhan Research Institute, the market size of China's home beauty device market was about 10 billion yuan (about $1.4 billion) in 2021. It is estimated to reach 25.1 billion yuan (about $3.6 billion) to 37.4 billion yuan (about $5.4 billion) in 2025 driven by the beauty economy.
The rapid growth of the market has also led to the establishment of more and more beauty instrument-related brands. Qichacha data is shown that as of December 2, there are 16,472 beauty-device-related companies in China, with 3,689 new companies in the past three years. In an e-commerce platform, CHAILEEDO searched the term "beauty device" and found that the brands displayed will have more than 100. The price range is very large with the top-selling brands in the price of 300 yuan (about $43) to 6000 yuan (about $860).
At the same time, beauty device brands are rapidly expanding their market share under the boost of capital. According to CHAILEEDO incomplete statistics, a total of 13 new beauty instrument brands have received financing from January 2021 to May 2022. These include AMIRO, JOVS and other hot selling Chinese local brands.
In the face of the growing beauty device market, international beauty companies have joined the fray in the past two years, launching beauty device products. In 2020, P&G had launched a beauty device called "OPTE AI". In the same year, the Kao Group exhibited EST beauty device at the CIIE. In June this year, the beauty giant L'Oreal showed its latest research and development of new beauty device - Lancôme Absolute Dual-LED Youth Treatment. In September this year, Shiseido collaborated with YA-MAN jointly launching a new beauty device brand Effectim.
Why is the beauty device market booming?
The explosion of the beauty device market may be related to the fact that consumers are now more concerned about anti-aging.
According to the data of CHAILEEDO, China's anti-aging skincare market size reached 83.315 billion yuan (about $12 billion) in 2021, up 21.6% year-on-year, accounting for 26.6% of the skincare market. The anti-aging market share is expected to reach 98.145 billion yuan (about $14.1 billion) in 2022, approaching 100 billion yuan (about $14.3 billion). And, China's anti-aging group is showing a younger trend.
It can be seen that skin anti-aging is becoming a mass topic. For this demand, home beauty device is more recognized by consumers compared to skincare products. MarketIDX data shows that the beauty device ranks first in terms of voice in the skincare demand of firming and anti-aging, higher than products or skincare methods such as essence, eye cream and Thermage. And, 58% of consumers will be willing to recommend the home beauty device to friends because it is effective. According to the Home Beauty Device Awareness and Anti-aging Consumer Behavior Research released by DXY.com, 68% of users who bought beauty device believe that the absorption effect of skincare products becomes better after using the home beauty device.
Innovation at the marketing is also driving the development of the industry. On Chinese social platforms such as Weibo, TikTok and Xiaohongshu, the booming development of social media has made beauty devices more popular. The Home Beauty Device Awareness and Anti-aging Consumer Behavior Research pointed out that consumers get information on home beauty device mainly from professional science platform or WeChat public account, accounting for about 78%.
Industry regulation to strengthen and the enterprise needs to cultivate internal strength
However, it must also be seen that the industry has been some chaos due to the low threshold of the beauty device industry. The standards on beauty device is not perfect. While the rapid development of the industry, the brand was punished from time to time due to product non-compliance.
In August last year, the Shenzhen Consumer Council released report on 10 hot-selling home beauty devices in a comparative experiment. There are 6 of them had issue of high nickel release, which are easy to cause skin allergies. Two of them does not meet the standard, which led to risk of low temperature burns. In addition, the five tested beauty devices claiming to have instantaneous lifting, secondary cleaning, two years of heat import effect are not as effective as the advertisement.
In October this year, the well-known beauty instrument brand ReFa affiliated company and Miss Arrivo agency were fined. The two were fined a total of 650,000 yuan (about $93 thousand).
According to the penalty, the official flagship store of ReFa, which was opened on the Tmall platform, sold beauty device, facial creams, hair dryers and other products. In order to increase the sales of the Refa ZhiMeiTrait Yukio RF beauty device, Refa related company released the advertising such as "recommended by Japanese anti-aging experts, a Board of Directors from China Anti-aging Promotion Association" without verification. After investigation, there is no Japanese doctor in the list of board members of China Anti-aging Promotion Association. It means that the advertisement is false.
In the advertisement of Miss Arrivo released by Miss Arrivo Beauty Instrument agency in its online store, the person shown in the real-man case did not participate in the instrument efficacy test commissioned by the party concerned and did not have the ability to complete the facial texture instrument test by itself, which is false.
CHAILEEDO noted that half of the above several penalties were due to its false advertising. Industry insiders pointed out that the application of home beauty device is a complex skin beauty technology such as radio frequency, microcurrent and light. Because the product is in direct contact with human skin need to address the complex issues of material safety, biological safety, the establishment of various types of home beauty apparatus safety and efficacy evaluation standards is particularly important.
In March 2022, the National Medical Products Administration issued an announcement on the adjustment of the Classification of Medical Devices, indicating that by April 2024, radio frequency beauty devices will be included in Class III of medical devices for management. It is important to note that Class III medical devices are the highest level of medical devices and must be strictly controlled.
In other words, in 2024, after the radio frequency beauty device is included in the management of Class III medical devices, the corresponding efficacy verification must also be in place. Under the trend of tightening regulation, the entrants are coming to seize the market share.
China's beauty device started late and is still in the early stages of development. At this stage, the industry does need more tolerance to encourage innovation. However, this does not mean laissez-faire. The head of the enterprise should lead by example and contribute to a good industry culture.
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