- Contents
- *Introduction
- Definition
- Figure 1: Definition of Low/Mid/High MHI groups, by city tier
- Methodology
- Abbreviations
“Sales in China’s laundry and fabric care market have remained strong as laundry and fabric care products are necessities for people’s daily life. In 2014, the total retail market reached RMB 60,522 million in value terms.
Currently, the total laundry and fabric care market is still mainly driven by the laundry detergent segment (with a market share of more than 90%) as products coming from this segment are essentials for household cleaning. But the market share of this segment has decreased over last two years, which is mainly due to the emerging trend that more and more consumers start to use conditioners/softeners.
Despite the fact that the laundry and fabric care category is a market which has been developed for many years, ample opportunities still exist for companies and brands since consumers’ living standards as well as dressing habits have been changed a lot. Products which could offer consumers ways to simplify the laundry process and improve laundry results are very likely to be successful and outstanding.
This report goes into details about understanding Chinese consumers’ attitudes as well as their usage habits towards laundry and fabric care products and possible business opportunities for companies and brands to further grow their shares in this market.”
In this report, Mintel answers the following key questions:
What are the key drivers and challenges in the Chinese laundry and fabric care market? Who are the leading players in this market?
How do Chinese people wash clothes and what kind of laundry and fabric care products do they use?
What do consumers think about product improvements when doing laundry?
Which kind of laundry and fabric care products are most appealing for Chinese people?
What are consumers’ attitudes towards laundry and fabric care products?
Definition
This report builds on the analysis presented in Mintel’s report Fabric Care – China, August 2014.
The laundry and fabric care market covers laundry detergents, fabric conditioners and softeners and laundry aids. Market size comprises sales through all retail channels including direct to consumer and excludes sales to professional laundries and launderettes.
Laundry detergents include machine wash liquid detergents, other machine wash detergents (including powders, capsules and tablets) and hand wash detergents (soap bar, hand wash liquid detergent and others).
Fabric conditioners & softeners include standard and concentrated conditioners, softeners.
Laundry aids include stain removers, ironing aids, whiteness and colour care products and other ancillary products for fabric care.
The market excludes air fresheners, washing machine decalcifiers/water softeners (to protect machines).
Mintel also divides consumers into three groups based on their monthly household income (MHI). The table below shows the definitions of Low MHI, Mid-MHI and High MHI consumer groups.
Methodology
This is a market intelligence report published by Mintel. The consumer research exclusively commissioned for this report was conducted by a Chinese licensed market survey agent (see Research Methodology China for more information).
For the purposes of this report, Mintel commissioned a quantitative research survey carried out online to explore consumer usage, behaviour and attitudes towards laundry and fabric care products.
Fieldwork was conducted in April 2015, in four tier one cities and six tier two and three cities of 3,000 internet users aged 20-49. The tier one cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu. The tier two and three cities are Tianjin, Chongqing, Handan, Hefei, Xuzhou, and Zhanjiang.
