Market for men’s personal care growing exponentially in PH – study

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino men are becoming increasingly particular when it comes to the products they shop for, especially personal care products.

Filipino men now prefer facial care, deodorant, shampoo and fragrance products that are specifically made for them, with men care products showing a 22% growth in sales from March 2015 to March 2016, new research by Kantar Worldpanel, a firm that tracks shopper’s behavior, showed.

This year’s growth is almost 3 times more than the year before which came in at only 8% and means that personal care products for men now account for 6.3% of total value sales of personal care products from 5.6% in 2015.

The data taken from the firm’s purchase behavior study in the Philippines, which it tracks across 3,000 homes in urban and rural areas across the country.

“This trend presents opportunities for brands to increase their marketing strategies to get even more personal and reach out to Filipino male shoppers who are making more gender-specific choices and purchases,” said Lourdes Deocareza, Kantar Worldpanel’s Business Development head.

The study also showed that men are willing to pay more for gender-specific products.

Unsurprisingly deodorants lead the increase and now comprise 28% value sales within the total deodorant market in the Philippines. Based on Kantar Worldpanel’s data, 27% of homes bought deodorant for men in the recent year, with Filipinos spending P16 more on them than they did in 2015.

Facial care products for men saw an 18% increase in consumer spending from P127 to P150, while average spending on shampoo variants for men went up from P110 to P123, and attracted 937,000 more buyers in 2016 compared to 2015, a 38% increase year-on-year.

The study found that the preference for male specific shampoos was most evident in low-income households too which added 4% to the 17% market share these households accounted for in 2015. – Rappler.com