Current status of the wet wipes market
With improved quality of life and hygiene habits, wipes have gradually become an everyday necessity. 50 years ago, wipes were just a tool to quickly clean hands after eating takeaways, and although wipes have been around for a long time, it was the advent of wipes in the 1970s that really expanded the market demand.
In recent years, the global wet wipes consumption market has shown significant regional and differentiated development opportunities,the consumption of wet wipes on all continents has shown a phase of extremely rapid growth, data show that baby wipes have the largest share of the global wet wipes retail market, as of 2019 the global wet wipes retail market size of $14.447 billion, baby wipes market size of up to $6.365 billion, accounting for the global wet wipes retail market 44.06%; pet wipes have also entered the market, such as antibacterial wipes for cleaning pets’ paws, which carry as many bacteria as human hands. Internationally, baby wipes were one of the first wipes to be launched and are also the most commonly used wipe product. Today, the popularity of wipes is increasing, and according to data from the Baby Industry Research Centre, baby wipes and regular wipes are the 2 categories that account for the largest share of sales in personal care wipes. The increasing number of new investments and the emergence of new brands has led to an increase in the wet wipes category. Wet wipes are becoming more globalised as a convenient and hygienic consumer product for daily use.
Most of the wet wipes as direct contact with human skin products, its safety has been a concern, which also promotes the market to use safer skin-friendly wet wipes with liquid and natural raw materials, at the same time, companies began to use natural fibres instead of chemical fibres as a carrier raw materials to produce wet wipes, optimize the tactile experience and to ensure that the material is naturally degradable, as the future development of the wet wipes industry tends to mature, consumers on wet wipes safety, natural and other quality requirements will improve, all kinds of wet wipes products will also show more emphasis on safe skin-friendly, natural raw materials trend.
Market development prospects and trends – the epidemic is driving the pace of development
As an important application area for nonwovens, wipes can be found everywhere in everyday life and in industrial production. From baby care to adult personal care, from facial cleansing wipes to skin care masks, from household wiping to car interior cleaning, from mobile phone cleaning to computer screen dusting, to machine and precision instrument cleaning, wipes are everywhere.
Under the influence of the new crown epidemic, the demand for sanitary and disinfectant wipes has been rising. Over the past 10 years, the wet wipes industry has shown a high growth rate, with an average annual growth rate of over 15%. Along with the growth in quantity, the wet wipes industry is also very active in terms of quality improvement and product innovation, with functional, environmentally friendly and differentiated products that meet different needs emerging, and the industry is moving into a phase of high quality development.
In early April 2021, the first Asian Wipes Wiping Materials Conference was held in Shanghai. The conference, the first high-end wiping materials industry conference in the Asian region, was organised by the China Technical Textiles Industry Association and Krauss Corporation, USA, with the support of the American Nonwovens Association, the European Nonwovens Association, the Japan Sanitary Materials Industry Federation and the Thai Nonwovens Industry Trade Association.
In 2020, China’s nonwoven output has reached 8.788 million tons, an increase of 35.85% year-on-year, accounting for about 40% of the global nonwoven output; exports amounted to US$5.049 billion, an increase of 65.14% year-on-year, accounting for about 20% of the global export market. The New Crown pneumonia epidemic has led to unprecedented corporate investment, especially in the spunbond, meltblown and spunlace industries, which are most closely associated with anti-epidemic materials, with the number of production lines and production capacity showing rapid growth. According to incomplete statistics, the total production capacity of China’s spunlace nonwovens enterprises in 2019 was about 1.2 million tonnes, with an actual output of about 950,000 tonnes; the new crown epidemic in 2020 accelerated the growth of the wet wipes industry, with the actual output of the spunlace nonwovens industry reaching 1.3 million tonnes, with about 200 newly signed spunlace production lines, of which about 1/3 were production lines with an annual capacity of more than 10,000 tonnes, and more consumers started using wet wipes, and the consumer market could see permanent and dramatic new changes in the future.
The Director of External Relations and Sustainable Development of the European Nonwovens Association said that nonwovens and its related industries play an important role in the task of achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and that each of the Sustainable Development Goals will be guided to varying degrees by four key areas: sustainable supply chains, eco-efficiency, building trust and product responsibility. This also shows that the future development trend of wet wipes cannot be separated from the theme and core of “sustainability”. The future trends are in four main areas.
- Consumers’ demand for wet wipes is getting higher and higher, the trend of product branding is remarkable, the market scale is getting larger and more competitive, enterprises should pay close attention to product quality and enhance brand awareness in order to have an advantage in the future market competition.
- Develop and promote advanced non-woven wet wipe materials that are green throughout their life cycle. For example, raw materials include bio-based fibres from natural renewable resources or recycled resources, controlled degradable polylactic acid fibres, low temperature dyed polyester fibres, etc.
- Enhance the advanced manufacturing process of non-woven wet wipe materials, so that the production line is equipped with online monitoring, automatic feedback processing of process problems, intelligent management of the whole process and visualisation of the operation, which will not only make the manufacturing process more advanced, but also enhance the manufacturing efficiency and final product quality of the differentiated and functional materials.
- Develop diversified wet wipe materials, as an end product, wet wipe materials increasingly need to achieve functional segmentation.
With the trend towards green and environmentally friendly products, wipes manufacturers will continue to develop more environmentally friendly and biodegradable products. Convenience, market acceptance and innovation continue to be the main drivers of the market.
