At present, the consumption growth of the paper industry has slowed down, and the output growth is weak. The whole paper industry is facing industrial upgrading and product upgrading. At the same time, infants and adults diaper have also entered the paper market. This paper analyzes the development potential of nappy market for infants and adults in China.

1.Multiple factors help baby diaper market scale expand steadily

(1) Increase in the number of newborns

According to the prediction of relevant researchers from the Institute of population and labor economics and the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, after the full opening of the second child in China, the number of newborns will increase by 7.5 million from 2015 to 2019. This is an important inflection point in this market, and the demand will reach a new high level.

(2) The per capita consumption of diaper has increased, and the product structure has developed to the high end

In terms of diaper consumption, the consumption habits of Chinese families are gradually changing from traditional cotton diapers to paper diapers. Therefore, China's per capita use of it is lower than the world level. In terms of per capita paper consumption, there is still a significant gap between China and developed countries. As for products, due to our different living habits, babies used to use diapers or diapers a lot in the past, but now with the improvement of the quality of life, this consumption habit is also changing. Especially after the post-80s and post-90s become parents, its use is increasing, from 3 tablets per day to 3.2 tablets per day. The average use of some first and second tier urban families has also reached more than 6 tablets per day, especially in the neonatal stage (0-3 months). However, with the growth of per capita GDP, the demand for high-end products will also increase.

2.The aging process is accelerating, leveraging the 10 billion market space of adult diaper

Adult diaper is an emerging industry in China, but it has a long history of development abroad. Take Japan for example, the market size of infants and adults is basically the same, but in China, the infant market has reached more than 30 billion RMB, while the adult market is only more than 4 billion RMB, with a scale ratio of about 8:1.

Therefore, from the perspective of development potential, with the arrival of China's aging society, the development space of Chinese adult diaper is very large. At present, there are 37.5 million elderly people over the age of 65 who need long-term care in China, and about 2million paralyzed and semi paralyzed patients under the age of 65, plus other incontinence patients. It is conservatively estimated that nearly 40million disabled elderly people need adult incontinence products. Generally speaking, the absorption amount of an adult nappy is about 1000ml, and the average daily urination amount of adults is 2400ml. About 3 tablets are used every day. If calculated according to the world average penetration rate of 12%, the consumption of adult incontinence products in China will reach 6.132 billion pieces. If calculated according to the average price of 1.62 RMB / piece (excluding tax), the market scale of domestic adult incontinence products is close to 10 billion RMB. In fact, the above calculation only refers to the world average level. If the penetration rate of developed countries is 30%, the market scale will be larger.

Diaper for infants and adults is an upgrade of the consumption of traditional industrial paper and household paper. With the weak demand for traditional industrial paper and household paper, infant and adult nappy will become a new demand growth point in the paper industry.