China’s electric toothbrushes oversea sales up by 10 times
China is now building a fourth electric toothbrush production base and expanding the production plant to 120,000 square meters. The previous three electric toothbrush production bases in China had an annual production capacity of 35 million pieces, but they could not meet the rapidly growing orders.
A person in charge of a large Chinese electric toothbrush manufacturer told the media that last year, China’s electric toothbrushes sold very well in overseas markets, with sales increasing threefold, and orders are still flowing, and orders have been scheduled for two to three months. The company started selling a new type of electric toothbrush in 2018, and sold the product to 110 countries in three years. In 2020, its overseas sales have increased by nearly nine times.
According to statistics from a Chinese e-commerce company, China’s electric toothbrushes have seen explosive growth in many overseas markets such as Europe and the Middle East in 2020. Among them, France’s year-on-year growth rate exceeded 140%, Germany’s growth rate was 160%, Poland’s growth rate was 90%, and Saudi Arabia’s growth rate was more than 420%.
Electric toothbrushes are becoming a strong variety made in China. On the one hand, this is due to the extreme cost-effectiveness brought by the complete supply chain dividend of Chinese manufacturing. Chinese products of the same quality are only half the price of foreign products; on the other hand, this is also the fact that Chinese manufacturing continues to break through the patent barriers of foreign giants through innovation. The result of its own competitiveness.
In an interview, the person in charge of a Chinese electric toothbrush manufacturer said that since last year, its electric toothbrush products first broke out in the Polish market, and then quickly expanded to the entire European market. “Not long after we entered the Polish market, online sales surpassed Philips. Subsequently, European markets such as Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Spain, and other European markets have experienced explosive growth. The performance of this market has exceeded our expectations because we have just entered these markets. It didn’t take long.” This company was founded in 2016 and did product development for nearly three years before the official sale. It only began to enter the market in 2018. By the end of 2020, it has sold electric toothbrushes in 110 countries.
The reasons for the hot sales of Chinese electric toothbrushes overseas are firstly that Chinese products have made great progress and achieved technological breakthroughs in many areas; secondly, Chinese brand prices are extremely cost-effective; thirdly, overseas consumers have initially formed electric toothbrushes. The epidemic has also deepened consumers’ concepts of oral hygiene.
In the electric toothbrush industry, foreign brands have a first-mover advantage. Foreign consumers have been educated by brands such as Philips and oral-B for many years, and their consumption habits are very stable. Chinese consumers are also more sought after such overseas brands.
However, in recent years, domestic electric toothbrush brands have risen rapidly under the encirclement of big foreign brands. Not only have their shares in the domestic market increased, but exports have also risen significantly, becoming a strong category of Chinese-made products in the international market. Many interviewees pointed out that the ultimate price-performance ratio is the biggest advantage of domestic electric toothbrushes in the international market. Under the same quality, the price of domestic electric toothbrushes is about half of that of foreign brands. For example, Philips and Oral-B electric toothbrushes sell for more than US$80 in the international market. Chinese brands generally sell for US$30-50. In fact, most international brands are also made in China, and there is no difference in quality.
An industry insider pointed out that at present, the difference in product quality between Chinese brands and international brands is very small, and for products of similar quality, the price of Chinese brands is about 1/2 of that of overseas brands. The main reason is that the brands of overseas giants the premium is higher. “In fact, Chinese brands and overseas brands have almost the same cost, but overseas brands will charge more premiums, so the prices are higher. The extremely high cost performance of Chinese brands is mainly due to China’s supply chain dividends. Chinese electric toothbrushes are used in domestic mobile phones. and other electronic products supply chain, grew up in this regard, China has the world’s most comprehensive, largest, most efficient, most resilient supply chain, which diluted the overall cost of the product to ensure product quality.
“Value for money. It’s just the first stepping stone to open the overseas market. Chinese electric toothbrushes going overseas also need to break through the patent barriers of foreign giants and build product competitiveness. Traditional European and American big names such as Philips and Oral-B have been deployed in the field of electric toothbrushes for many years. There are thousands of patents in technology, appearance and parameters. This has become a technical barrier that China’s electric toothbrushes cannot bypass in the early stage of the rise of electric toothbrushes. Because these giants monopolize a large number of industry patents, Chinese brands must find a different way and take the road of independent research and creation.
An insider in this industry told the 21st Century Business Herald that over the years, foreign giants have had a relatively stable share in the electric toothbrush market. They hold a number of patents, their motivation for innovation has declined, and they are conservative in the development of new features. Prices remain high, and its legal affairs often use patent lawsuits to suppress competitors and maintain their position in the industry. “For example, the flared toothbrush head was the first designed by Philips, and their legal affairs are very strong. Any domestic brand designed a brush head that resembles it will be sue for infringement. Last year, many Chinese products were forced to be removed from the shelves.”
At the same time, it is pointed out that currently under the influence of anti-globalization trends, European and American laws and regulations are not very friendly to Chinese products. Under the premise of not touching patents, they will face various accusations. Chinese brands in the initial stage lack a strong legal team. To fight back, so we must pay attention to bypassing these patent barriers in the product development process.
In order to break through the technical barriers, a Chinese company with OEM and ODM as its main business established a dedicated design team and patent team at the beginning of its establishment to try to avoid possible patent problems while speeding up its own patent layout. The manufacturer said that in the field of electric toothbrushes, they have already had more than 300 patents around the design, internal structure, and motors.
With the emergence of the individual needs of consumers, many Chinese electric toothbrush brands have shown signs of overtaking in terms of design diversity, IP cooperation authorization, and technical parameters. For example, a certain brand of domestic electric toothbrush purchased the Louvre famous painting copyright and added it to the design in its appearance design, making its products highly praised in the French market. Another Chinese electric toothbrush manufacturer has entered this market from the perspective of smart hardware, breaking the patent layout of traditional electric toothbrushes and subverting the existing business logic of this industry.
A large-scale electric toothbrush manufacturer in China said that unlike other electric toothbrush manufacturers, many of its core R&D members come from the mobile communication industries such as Huawei, ZTE, and vivo. “The original electric toothbrushes are classified as small household appliances. The interactive experience innovation around core components and products is very limited, and there are also many patent barriers. However, we use cross-industry innovative ideas to collect and analyze data from smart sensors. , Cloud services, APP interactive development, etc., we have done a lot of innovation. For this we have also applied for a large number of patents. At present, we have published more than 200 patents in the field of electric toothbrushes and oral care products. In addition, more than 100 patents have not been published. “The electric toothbrush they produce has an LCD screen on the bottom. There are multiple sensors inside the toothbrush, which can monitor the user’s brushing angle, pressure, running track and other data in real time. The cloud can be connected to the mobile phone to analyze the pressure of the toothbrush in real time. Whether the residence time per unit area is appropriate, and evaluate the effect of brushing from multiple indicators, and give personalized improvement suggestions based on the data. In his view, although foreign giants are leading the way in traditional products, Chinese companies are leading the way in terms of smart hardware, and cross-border upgrades of products will give Chinese brands new competitive advantages.
(The above information comes from 21st Century Business Herald.)
