2024 Analysis of China's Internet maternal and infant industry

The maternal and infant industry is in a critical period of the formation of a new world pattern. To the second half, on the one hand is the squeeze competition, the intensity is still rising; On the other hand, industry innovation and boundary broadening are still continuing, and many leading brands are bucking the trend; Many innovative categories, brands and product lines also stand out in troubled times. "New mother and baby, more than mother and baby" is the theme of 2024, but also through the cycle of each show of strength. Behind the complicated information, what changes are the new generation of mothers and the maternal and infant industry experiencing?

It is understood that Analysys, a third-party authority, recently released the "2024 Annual Analysis of China's Internet maternal and Child Market" report in July, which, as a rare annual blockbuster report, has aroused the attention of many people inside and outside the industry.

The growth potential is still there, and the decision advance and emotional value have been deepened again, becoming the standard of contemporary new mothers

The report shows that population births continue to decline, although it is expected to improve in 2024, it is still urgent to encourage the birth policy to continue to land. With the continuous improvement of industry policies and the increasing social promotion tension, practical policies have been implemented in various places, such as improving infant care services, improving children's health level, implementing the protection of maternal and child rights, strengthening the safety and scientific supervision of maternal and child industries, etc., which has also promoted the continuous growth of high-quality maternal and child services and products.

It is somewhat surprising that no matter the transaction scale of China's maternal and infant industry in 2024, or the online retail transaction scale of China's maternal and infant physical goods, although the growth rate has declined, it can still maintain a nearly double-digit growth, which can be seen for two main reasons:

1) Most contemporary women have carefully considered the fertility issue, and preparation-pregnancy-childbearing will revolve around scientific and refined development.

2) The incremental growth of maternal and child consumption driven by diversified consumption and upgrading effectively offset the reduction of population decline, and the market growth potential is still there.

As previously analyzed, the whole process of preparation - pregnancy - childbirth - fertility science after rational measurement will continue to advance to the level of [advance] and [professional]. The report shows that 8-90% of mothers will consult professional materials to learn, specifically find brands, compare ingredients, and research word-of-mouth. Get popular science strategies through accurate professional platforms and do your homework in advance; And in the consumption decision, the search for function and emotional value of the brand goods have become an irreversible trend.

The data found that the user scale in the maternal and infant vertical field decreased with fluctuations, and the crowd-driven stickiness and dependence increased

According to the data in the report, another set of new findings is that under the general trend of the decline of the birth population in the field of mother and child, the active scale has a single-digit decline and fluctuation, but the sticky data such as the number of starts and the start time are on the rise. It proves that more and more parents who finally choose the road of pregnancy choose to believe in science, high-frequency learning, careful research, and daily learning and research of relevant knowledge have become just needs.  

Insight: relaxation is the ideal process, accurate and efficient parenting is an effective way to achieve

From the crowd portraits, it can also be found that the root cause of the substantial increase in sticky data is that young parents in the Z era know better how to use tools to assist them and embark on the ideal road of efficient and accurate parenting.

In the iterative change of new people and new needs, they pursue relaxation and science. With a positive attitude, with the blessing of modern science and technology to achieve their own needs. For example, they will record and analyze the child's growth data through a variety of maternal and child vertical parenting apps, understand the development situation, and timely adjust the parenting style.

Through the cycle adhere to the product propaganda pull new, the vertical field of maternal and infant APP head siphon effect is prominent

Driven by the continuation of the industry stock, the pursuit of user efficiency and the need for accurate pregnancy, different platforms have different solutions to cross the cycle. From the current competition pattern of China's Internet maternal and child industry APP users, it is still insisting on a large number of products to pull new head platforms, and with the continuous upgrading advantages of its content ecology, professional service, technological innovation and brand influence, it will siphon more generation Z new mothers, and the stronger the stronger the circle gathering, forming a virtuous circle atmosphere. Accompany each other to solve their increasingly detailed pain points in the pregnancy journey needs of the scene.

In terms of further segmentation, users of vertical apps for mothers and children have increased their usage time and startup times, mainly due to the rich and diversified maternity content provided by the APP, personalized companionship, pain point prediction and solution, active community interaction, professional maternal and child tool services, etc. These factors jointly improve user experience and increase user stickiness. Make the mother and baby vertical APP an integral part of the user's pregnancy journey.

All categories are worth doing again with mother and child, and all categories of mother and child drive are upgraded again

Maternal and child consumer goods are called "special" consumer goods, because they have three special characteristics: first, safety first, raw materials, the highest quality standards; Second, more exclusive design and scene adaptation optimization; Third, the most attention to details, the most attention to humanization and experience needs. This trend shows that with the increasing consumer demand for maternal and child products, all consumer categories can be upgraded through "maternal and child thinking", thus opening up new market space.

Therefore, whether it is Daily Necessities, or maternal and child household appliances, family cars, more subdivision scenes and subdivision explosive models have emerged due to the needs and thinking of large mothers and children, and the continuous innovation, refinement and upgrading of new categories, new formulas, new ingredients and new functions have been promoted. In particular, the report pointed out that taking maternal and child home appliances as an example, the annual retail sales of maternal and child home appliances market in 2024 reached 56.9 billion yuan, an increase of 25% year-on-year, becoming the fastest growing dark horse in the home appliance industry. It can be predicted that from "mother and child" to "large mother and child", from "mother and child" to "new mother and child", more and more categories will achieve scene upgrading, technology upgrading and market new dividend increment under the thinking and scenario of maternal and child special consumer goods, and there will be more tracks that have not been explored worth doing again with mothers and children.

Marketing competition inspiration: multi-scene integration, each show their strengths is the only way out

According to the analysis of the report, the continuous user pregnancy journey is the cornerstone of maternal and child marketing. Among them, the maternal and child comprehensive community led by the mother network pregnancy APP, the comprehensive pan-content platform led by the Little Red Book, and the comprehensive short video platform led by the Douyin, each shoulder different content and media roles in the entire maternal and child ecology, and provide three-dimensional and diversified company to protect the new young mothers of Generation Z. Report examples: As a vertical content platform for mothers and babies, the mothernet pregnancy APP focuses on knowledge tools as the main body to build a structured system and scene content for pregnancy preparation; Little Red book is committed to the current maternal and child track hot content theme trend display, share the trend of fresh parenting content; Tiktok focuses on the output of short video content for mothers and babies, and focuses on the ecology of talent and live marketing. In the era of time dust, the immersive learning space scene will superimpose numerous pan-entertainment touch scenes. In integrated marketing, cognitive retouch, learning deepening and decision-making anchoring are achieved, so that their strengths and scenes are superpositioned is the key way out for the maternal and child industry and maternal and child marketing.

Consumer trends of the year: No one knows the mother and baby scene and products better than the mother

Finally, the report concludes: The maternal and infant industry is evolving, and user consumption is also evolving. While consumers are willing to provide incremental premiums for intelligent and quality upgraded products for mothers and babies, there will also be more component mothers and technical mothers emerging. TA from the brand of strong evolution to professional cognition first, taking into account emotional value. In the future, more stringent product requirements and more segmented marketing needs will be put forward for maternal and child brand manufacturers.

"No scene, no marketing." Overall, the journey of the new generation of mothers is full of challenges and opportunities. No one can better understand maternal and child scenes and maternal and child products than the mother, truly participate in the game, the scene is the first, the heart to accompany, will occupy the opportunity in the market, to obtain incremental dividends.