The hair care market in the US will continue to grow at a steady pace in the coming years owing to rising disposable income, increasing annual expenditure on hair care products, innovative advertisement campaigns, attractive packaging and rising fashion consciousness. It has been estimated that the market will grow at a CAGR of 2.5% and is expected to cross USD 13 billion by 2020 in terms of revenue generated through retail sales of hair care products. Product quality and specificity are very important concerns while purchasing a hair care product from consumer’s perspective. Companies are therefore targeting to come up with products that target specific individual needs rather than targeting the entire superset of population. Established companies including L’Oreal, P&G, Unilever, Henkel, Kao Corporation, Vogue International and fairly new entrants including Mixed Chicks, Curls, Miss Jessi’s, Shea Moisture and Jane Carter Solution are focusing to improve the customer experience by offering them superior quality products that are tailor made for an individual’s hair type.
US hair care market poses a lucrative opportunity for new breakthrough products since the market is quite mature and people of the country are highly receptive to quality products. The global hair care market grew at a CAGR of around 3% during 2010-2015. In comparison to emerging markets such as Brazil, China and India, the US market grew at a much slower pace. US hair care market accounted for 15% market share of the global hair care as of 2015 and was one of the largest hair care markets in the world, certainly the largest in North America. The market was characterized by the presence of several small, medium and large multinational companies focusing on one or more of the hair care product segments such as shampoo, conditioner, hair color, hair styling products and treatment or hair growth products.
The hair care market in the US was fairly concentrated and continued to be highly competitive with top three players i.e., L’Oreal, P&G and Unilever together accounted for a combined retail market share of over 60% in 2015. L’Oreal with its robust product portfolio including L’Oreal Paris, Garnier, L’Oreal Professional, Redken, Kerastase, Matrix and Carol’s Daughter was the market leader in 2015.
Shampoo was the largest product segment accounting for about 34% of the market revenues in 2015. Wide scale adoption of shampoo as a hair care item in the US resulted in growth of this segment. Herbal, anti-dandruff, moisturizing and vitamin fortified shampoo products were amongst the most sold products in the US market. Conditioners are complementary products of shampoo and used post shampooing. Majority of the conditioners are sold as a combo product with the shampoos. Growth of conditioners was also fueled by the increased adoption of cleansing conditioners (co-wash) in the country. Since this conditioner conditions and also cleanses the hair, it offered consumers an alternative to shampoo. In the US, almost 7 in 10 adult females using hair conditioner product users were reported to be interested in buying a co-wash cleaning conditioner for regular usage in 2015.
Hair styling products such as gel, crème, hair spray and mousse which assist in setting and obtaining the desired hairstyle were highly popular in the country, driving the growth of this segment. Ageing US population with median age over 40 years in many states has fueled the dependence on hair colors combined with the demand from young and working women. Other hair care products such as hair growth and treatment serums accounted for the remaining 6.6% of the market share in 2015.
However, there are certain market challenges that are faced by the hair care providers such as the threat of counterfeit products. Counterfeit products have a remarkable negative impact on innovation, brand value, firm reputation and overall business and sales of a company. They also pose significant health and safety concern to the consumers because of substandard ingredients used in the products. The US market has witnessed growing share of counterfeit products with lower price tags. High unit profitability, large potential target audience and genuine brand power have been the driving factors for the growth of counterfeit products.
According to an industry veteran, “The companies can enter into various business and strategic alliances in all facets of its business. A company must have a good network base of distribution channel to cater to the demand across the country and must engage in meaningful advertisement campaigns of its products to generate awareness about the products offerings to its target consumers.”
“Manufacturing of products by procuring superior quality raw materials or ingredients compliant to the set industry standards should be the prime focus for each company. An ideal business model should be the combination of quality production, packaging and content driven aggressive marketing campaigns engaging the end consumers while extending the network presence in different regions through collaboration with retail outlet and salons.” according to the Market Research Analyst, Ken Research.
The research report by Ken Research titled “US Hair Care Market Outlook to 2020 – Natural Ingredients and Multi-Cultural Products to Drive Future” provides detailed overview on the US hair care market and helps the readers to identify the ongoing trends in the industry and anticipated growth in future depending upon changing industry dynamics in coming years. The report will help industry consultants, existing hair care product manufacturers, new players venturing in the market and other stakeholders to align their future growth strategies according to ongoing and expected trends in the future considering the recommendations and insights given in the report.
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