The fourth annual Asia Adult Expo began Friday with companies showing sexy products directed at China's growing middle class. The adult industry is looking to tap mainland China and Asian markets amid the downturn inside U.S. and Europe.
Show exhibitors said many Chinese are in possession of more open-minded views about sex, that is driving demand for many. The expo's organizers said they want to launch similar fairs later this season in other parts of China, which churns out nearly seventy-five per cent of the world's adult sex toys.
Estimates of the size of the adult industry in China take time and effort to come by. But the state-run China Daily newspaper said in a very report last year that China produces 70 % of the world's sex toys, making it the world's biggest producer. That is a, with more than 1,000 manufacturers, may be worth about $2 billion annually, it said.
"The quality of life in China is rising and people want to upgrade their lifestyle hence the market needs these products," said Bo Chen, as they sat next to examples of his company's main product, a lifelike and anatomically correct female sex doll created from rubbery, flesh-like material that will cost you 16,000 yuan ($2,500).
Chen owned a chemical factory in China's Jiangsu province but 3 years ago he thought we would start making sex toys as he sensed there was an opportunity.
Chen, president of Jurong Outlook Toys & Gifts Manufacturing Co., said he and several friends pooled their funds to start the business. He could be hoping to meet potential prospects among the 2,500 trade visitors and 30,000 members of the general public expected with the Macau fair. It was his first stop by at the annual show, attended by 80 companies from 13 countries.
Chen's case is certainly not unusual, said Kenny Lo, us president of show organizer Vertical Expo. Many Chinese manufacturers realized they might tweak their product lines to make adult goods with minimal investment to reap bigger profits. It isn't such a big step for underwear makers to generate sexy lingerie and easy for companies making regular toys to change to sex toys, he said.
The United States and Europe have traditionally been the most important markets for the adult industry. But slumping economies you will find curtailing growth while competition and low profits are also making life hard for companies, said Lo.
In Asia the market is much more undeveloped so "there is significantly potential for growth," Lo said. Adult product manufacturers have told him that in the usa and Europe, "it's an extremely tough time right now however in mainland China and Asia, it's good."
Lo said demand low cost has prompted his Hong Kong-based company to start branching out with new fairs in the rest of China, you start with a show in October in Shenzhen, just through the border from Hong Kong. It's going to be followed by shows in Fuzhou on China's eastern coast and Qingdao inside the northeast. It's also eyeing shows in Taiwan and Singapore.
Other emerging finance industry is also sources of growth. Renata Bertacini came entirely from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to source items on her boutique and online shop Mimosexy.
"I stumbled on find new products to adopt to Brazil, something totally new to import from China," she said. Lots of the products were items she already stocks but at half the price that her middlemen home charge, she can lower your expenses by buying them directly.
On the expo, vibrators of all shapes and colours, condoms, lubricants and blowup male and female dolls were displayed. One company was selling coffee tables made of erotic statues.
"The mainland Chinese, they are very open to these sexual things," said Lo. "It's not something what a taboo" anymore.
It's a indication of how rapid social modifications in China are driving new businesses. Several decades ago, men and women were strictly segregated in several parts of life and many people wore drab clothing that revealed little. Nowadays, shops selling sexual aids are routine in many cities, and pornography, while officially banned, is commonly found on the Internet.
China's booming economy, the earth's second biggest, is in large part driving those changes.
"A great deal of these people have first-generation money. Before in the event it was old money, it was shameful to show it," said Zach Goode, a sales director at Electric Eel, which holds the global license to Hustler lingerie.
Now, China's nouveau riche don't simply want BMWs and Gucci, "they desire to express themselves and have sexy shoes and lingerie and enjoy yourself with it. They're not as repressed as the last generation was."
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