Sexy lingerie, adult costumes, inflatable dolls and much more are on display at an adult industry trade fair in the Chinese territory of Macau that shows how China’s growing influence has spread, even to the bedroom.
The fourth annual Asia Adult Expo began on Friday, with companies showing off sexy products aimed at China’s growing middle class. The adult industry is looking to tap China and Asian markets amid the downturn in the US and Europe.
Show exhibitors said many Chinese now have more open-minded views about sex, which is driving demand for their products. The expo’s organizers said they plan to launch similar fairs later this year in other parts of China, which also churns out nearly three-quarters of the world’s sex toys.
Estimates of the size of the adult industry in China are hard to come by, but the China Daily newspaper said in a report last year that China produces 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, making it the world’s biggest producer. The industry, with more than 1,000 manufacturers, is worth about US$2 billion annually, it said.
“The standard of living in China is rising and people want to upgrade their lifestyle, so the market needs these products,” Bo Chen said as he sat next to samples of his company’s main product, a lifelike and anatomically correct female sex doll made of rubbery, flesh-like material that sells for 16,000 yuan (US$2,500).
Chen owned a chemical factory in China’s Jiangsu Province, but three years ago he decided to start making sex toys because he sensed there was an opportunity.
Chen, president of Jurong Outlook Toys & Gifts Manufacturing Co, said he and several friends pooled their money to start the business.
He is hoping to meet potential customers among the 2,500 trade visitors and 30,000 members of the general public expected at the Macau fair. It was his first visit to the annual show, attended by 80 companies from 13 countries.
Chen’s case is not that unusual, said Kenny Lo (老旭華), chief executive of show organizer Vertical Expo (縱延展業). Many Chinese manufacturers realized they could tweak their product lines to make adult goods with minimal investment to reap bigger profits. It is not such a big step for underwear makers to make sexy lingerie and it is easy for companies making regular toys to switch to sex toys, he said.
The US and Europe have traditionally been the biggest markets for the adult industry, but slumping economies there are curtailing growth, while competition and low profit margins are also making life hard for companies, Lo said.
In Asia, the market is much less developed so “there is much potential for growth,” Lo said. Adult product manufacturers have told him that in the US and Europe, “it’s a very tough time right now, but in mainland China and Asia, it’s good.”
Lo said demand from suppliers has prompted his Hong Kong-based company to start branching out with new fairs in other parts of China, starting with a show in October in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong. It will be followed by shows in Fuzhou on China’s eastern coast and Qingdao further up the coast. It’s also eyeing shows in Taiwan and Singapore.
Other emerging markets are also sources of growth. Renata Bertacini came all the way from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to source items for her boutique and online shop Mimosexy.
“I came to find new products to take to Brazil, new things to import from China,” she said.
Many of the products were items she already stocks; but at half the price that her middlemen back home charge, she can save money by buying them directly.
At the expo, vibrators of all shapes and colors, condoms, lubricants and blowup male and female dolls were on display. One company was selling coffee tables made of erotic statues.
“The mainland Chinese, they are very open to these sexual things,” Lo said. “It’s not something that’s a taboo” anymore.
It’s a sign of how rapid social changes in China are driving new businesses. Several decades ago, men and women were strictly segregated in many parts of life and most people wore drab clothing that revealed little. Nowadays, shops selling sexual aids are common in many cities and pornography, while officially banned, is commonly found on the Internet.
China’s booming economy, the world’s second biggest, is in large part driving many of those changes.
“A lot of these people have first-generation money. Before when it was old money, it was shameful to show it,” said Zach Goode, a sales manager at Electric Eel, which holds the global license to Hustler lingerie.
Now, China’s nouveau riche don’t just want BMWs and Gucci, “they want to express themselves and have sexy shoes and lingerie and have fun with it. They’re not as repressed as the last generation was,” Goode said.
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Ashton Hall’s morning routine involves dunking his head in iced Saratoga Spring Water. For the company that sells the bottled water — Hall’s brand of choice for drinking, brushing his teeth and submerging himself — that is fantastic news. “We’re so thankful to this incredible fitness influencer called Ashton Hall,” Saratoga owner Primo Brands Corp’s CEO Robbert Rietbroek said on an earnings call after Hall’s morning routine video went viral. “He really helped put our brand on the map.” Primo Brands, which was not affiliated with Hall when he made his video, is among the increasing number of companies benefiting from influencer
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) yesterday expressed a downbeat view about the prospects of humanoid robots, given high manufacturing costs and a lack of target customers. Despite rising demand and high expectations for humanoid robots, high research-and-development costs and uncertain profitability remain major concerns, Lam told reporters following the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taoyuan. “Since it seems a bit unworthy to use such high-cost robots to do household chores, I believe robots designed for specific purposes would be more valuable and present a better business opportunity,” Lam said Instead of investing in humanoid robots, Quanta has opted to invest
RSS