With China’s recent policy to promote the birth rate, the proportion of newborn second babies in China has increased, which has boosted the growth of the maternity and baby industry. Analysys and Baidu Marketing jointly released the “2022 Internet Maternity and Baby Industry User Insights” report, and we have compiled the key overviews.
The proportion of maternity and baby product users of all ages, up to 60% are users under 30 years old, which shows that the post-90s generation has become the main force in this field. Despite the increase in online consumption, offline shopping channels such as offline mother and baby stores or comprehensive offline supermarkets are still the core of the mother and baby market. Cities below the third and fourth-tiers took advantage of the birth bonus granted by the government to ease the burden of raising children, showing a high purchase frequency.
The post-90s generation has developed a new consumption model, demand for high-end professional products has increased, and they are accustomed to doing their homework before buying a product. New consumption concepts such as personalization, quality, and scientificity have opened a wide development space for the mother and baby market. More than 80% of users check product reviews, research professional information, and compare product ingredients.
When choosing search platforms, up to 45.3% of users prefer comprehensive search platforms, dominated by the Baidu APP, one of the main platforms for mother and baby group users to search for information, and also one of the key channels influencing consumption decisions of the mother and baby groups. Only a small number of users, 19.5% prefer a social networking site/app or a short video app while searching for relevant information.
Maternal and baby group users' behaviour
Mother and baby group users expressed numerous needs and formed multiple sub-categories, such as reviewing products, searching for authentic products, reviewing ratings, searching for channels, comparing prices and learning general knowledge. In addition to focusing on the vertical content of mother and baby, users also pay attention to various areas such as pregnancy and postpartum as hobbies. For example, during pregnancy, users pay special attention to makeup in the personal care and beauty section, and fruit is another topic in the nutrition section during pregnancy. In the postpartum period, the focus is on confinement centres and weight loss.
In addition, maternal and baby group users also show new characteristics in key categories:
Baby food: The increasing segmentation of the milk powder industry has led to the nutrition of mothers and infants becoming more refined and scientific. At the same time, they focus on the effectiveness of milk formula and feeding methods and pay more attention to complementary foods as an important source of balanced nutrition for infants, which has also become a planned meal.
Diapers: Based on the increase in functional requirements and usage scenarios, segmented categories showed a trend of specialization, and users have started to pay attention to the differences between segmented categories and material safety, and their attention also increased rapidly, by 16.4% year-on-year.
Maternal and baby toiletries: The basic content needs of the users of the mother and baby group are still the general knowledge of washing care, for example, the attention to the ingredients has greatly increased, thus the overall search share of the skincare category has risen rapidly, and the plant-based ingredients have become the new trend of scientific skin care.
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