Top Insights of Colour Contact Lens Brands in China

 12 Aug 2022 |  Wenxian L & Andy G  | 3 min read

Intro

In China, with the attention paid to appearance level by the Z- generation and the boom of the appearance economy, colour contact lenses have become the currently popular products.

The market size of colour contact lenses in China.

With the rapid development of China’s new consumer industry in recent years and the young and diversified environment created by the Internet, the aesthetic ability of the public has been improved, especially the young people which born in the Z- Generation have higher requirements for “beauty” and innovation.

In 2019, the market size of colour contact lenses in China reached 1.588 billion RMB. And the figure has grown to 1.75 billion RMB by 2020, an increase of more than 10% from 2015. This shows that the Chinese colour contact lens market is developing rapidly.

Top 10 colour contact lens brands in China

In recent years, companies in China’s colour contact lens market have been divided into two main categories：

Category 1- Traditional colour contact lens brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Hydron and Bausch + Lombetc.

Category 2- Emerging brands such as Moody, 4inlook, Cofancy and Kilala etc.

The following are the top 10 most popular color contact lens brands in China in 2021.

1. Johnson & Johnson
2. Bausch + Lomb
3. Hydron
4. SEED
5. CIBA
6. Horien
7. NEO
8. Pegavision
9. CLB
10. Moody

The ranking shows that, except for Moody, most of the brands are traditional contact lens brands imported from abroad. This is related to their proven technology. But it is undeniable that the second category, dominated by Emerging brands, is growing rapidly with the advantage of the Internet.

Chinese User Portrait for colour contact lenses

According to the consumer age distribution chart for 2020, the main consumers of colour contact lenses are young people who born in the Z- era. This means that brands need to tap into the interests of young people, such as how to use social media platforms to target audience. For traditional brands, the previous marketing and sales model needs to be reformed, while for emerging brands, the Internet marketing and sales model will make their investment costs lower.

Major apps for brand promotions and sales

It is relatively difficult for traditional colour contact lens brands to innovate and reform their marketing and sales models, which are still relatively traditional, such as physical shop sales and TVC. This undoubtedly creates an opportunity for emerging brands to use social media software such as TikTok (Douyin) and Xiaohongshu to market and sell to their advantage.

Nowadays Online e-commerce (social media) platform is the main channel for emerging brand sales and marketing. It also achieved amazing results. Take MOODY as an example, in 2021, MOODY’s online shop sales reached 129 million RMB during the “Double 11” online shopping festival.

Consumer information receiving sources

Social media is the main source of information for consumers, and according to statistics, there are more than 800,000 notes on Little Red Book about “colour contact lenses”, including praise and criticism, as well as “lists of worth buying”. For consumers, recommendations from KOLs on social media platforms are also a factor in their choice to buy or not.

Conclusion

At present, China’s colour contact lens industry is developing rapidly, and it uses the Internet to innovate new marketing and sales models and channels. Emerging brands are expected to surpass traditional brands.

How to make better use of the Internet and digital marketing to make the brand out of the numerous competitors is the current colour contact lens brand needs to consider. Check out our other blog article about entering the China market through digital marketing.