The analysis of adult disposable diaper industry in Thailand

In 2016 Thailand had a population of 64.4 million which became people who aged over 60 years over 9.8 million or 15 percent of the total Thai population. The World Bank estimated Thailand would be an aging society by growing the seniors to 17 million within 2040. The older adults tend to risk being diseases as stand conditions in an older age which one of the diseases is urinary incontinence problems. The problems can occur in many causes such as a weak bladder muscle, overactive bladder, etc. The problems will affect towards using the life normally and mentality. In Thailand, the urinary incontinence prevalence found 38.8 percent; however, Thai seniors were too shy to discuss the problems. Currently, a few firms offer the adult disposable diaper for supporting the issues which help the seniors’ lives better. In 2016, the adult disposable diaper valued USD 66.4 million which grew twice times since 2012. Therefore, the research study described an adult disposable diapers industry in Thailand and an analyzing of two key competitors in the industry which were Certainty™ and Lifree®. The research methodology designed both of exploratory research and descriptive research which were depth interview, secondary data and observation respectively. The depth interview conducted nine seniors and one staff of a nursing home, and the observation discovered for eight stores in three formats, a hypermarket, a supermarket and a convenient store. The results found that the seniors were mild urinary incontinence symptoms until severe symptoms (a bedridden) and they felt worried towards their symptoms. The older adults took time for a while for deciding to buy the diapers, and the diaper attributes that they looked respectively for were the high absorbency attribution, fast drain, slim format and controlling the urine smells. Currently, the industry was dominated 95.7 percent of total market size by two companies which were DSG International (Thailand) and Unicharm. DSG was competence in taped diaper category while Unicharm was strong in pant diaper category. However, for the secondary data interview foresaw that the adult diaper market foresaw to evolve bigger recently than Thai baby disposable diapers which were USD 389 million in 2016.