There are few local brands in the KN95 mask market that can compete with 3M or Honeywell.
Editor’s note: This article comes from “ First Financial Business Data Center “, author Dong Xiaofei Zhang Xiaosha.
This year’s Spring Festival’s most popular and popular product is undoubtedly masks. Because of the spread of the new coronavirus, it has changed from a product with a low penetration rate to “hard currency.”
After Wuhan officially suggested that people go out and wear masks, masks have become a “hard to find” commodity. On January 20 and 21, 8000 has been sold on Taobao 10,000 masks , equivalent to 40 million sales per day. In the four days after January 19th, JD.com sold an average of about 36 million pieces per day. Only on January 22nd, mask sales were higher than last month. The average daily increase is as high as 48 times.
From January 21st to 27th, according to the data of business staff, the most searched mask brands on Taobao platform are: 3M, Jianjian and Honeywell. It is worth mentioning that masks are not the “main business” of these three companies. Among them, 3M and Honeywell’s best-selling products are KN95 masks. KN95 refers to a mask that meets China’s GB 2626 compulsory standard and has a filtration efficiency of ≥95% for non-oily particles. It can isolate smaller particles than ordinary medical masks and is more expensive than ordinary medical masks. Wenjian also produces KN95 masks, but its nursing and surgical masks are more popular (the difference between masks is recommended to check out Doctor LilacArticle ).
Are the major brands of masks “doing business?”
The name 3M you may often see in your life, from dishwashing cloths, post-it notes, earplugs to masks.
3M, which looks like a grocery store, was originally a mining machinery company in the United States. Later, it continued to broaden its operating boundaries to become a multinational company that has both to B and to C. In 2019, it ranked 95th in the world’s top 500, with a market value of more than $ 100 billion and annual sales of about $ 32.8 billion.
Although 3M’s products are not high-tech at first glance, this is a company that values research and development. It spends about 7% of its costs on research and development; the first three quarters of 2019 were $ 1.384 billion. So far, the company has 118,000 patents.
Its diverse business may be related to encouraging employees to innovate: employees can use 15% of their working time to do their own things (this system was later borrowed by Google). Because of the employee’s “doing nothing”, 3M obtained Scotch tape, one of its best-selling products in the company’s history. Unlike many ancient and huge companies that are prone to fall into the “innovator’s dilemma”, 3M is market-oriented: when it finds a business with a bleak prospect, it will divest itself in time, even if the business still makes money in the moment.
In 1969, 3M introduced masks for filtering air in mining operations, initially sold as industrial appliances. In 1970, a mask of 3M passed the US government certification. Before SARS in 2003, the users of 3M masks in China were almost all industrial users.
From late 2012 to early 2014, the haze changed the “fate” of 3M masks, and it began to become a consumer product to C. In 2013, 3M’s masks (including KN95, KN90 and other masks) sold in China were worth more than 100 million US dollars, and 3M Chinese company’s annual sales were 3 billion US dollars. According to Daily Economic News report in 2017 , 3M accounts for the haze mask market About 90%. The 3M sales deployment also changed: Originally, the masks belonged to the Security and Identification Division at 3M, but it was later adjusted to the Consumer Products Division.
Except 3M, another big imported protective mask