Danbishuang advertisement (Photo : Danbishuang )
A male electrical engineer from Henan Province will launch China's first domestic tampon brand later this month.
This shocking news that 51 year-old Ye Deliang is making an intimate feminine hygiene product is matched by equally shocking news only two percent of Chinese women currently use tampons.
And this should present a huge market and a huge marketing problem for Ye since Chinese women haven't accepted tampons the same way they have sanitary napkins. Chinese women also don't know a lot about tampons and tampon use.
Ye will launch his tampon brand, "Danbishuang," late this August via a social media campaign that will focus on the health benefits of using tampons. The patriotic Ye believes Chinese women want a domestically made tampon.
The word Danbishuang translates into Crimson Jade Cool in English.
"It is important China has its own brand of tampon," he said. "Every industry needs a pioneer, and I want to be this one's."
Ye's interest in tampons began five years ago when he worked as a representative for Johnson & Johnson, maker of the o.b. tampon brand. He quit this job and opened his own factory in 2010 with some college friends. The group designed the tampon-making machines themselves.
Chinese media said Chinese women that want to use tampons had to settle for expensive or hard to get foreign brands. A Chinese company, Wishu, is selling its tampons online but still has to get major supermarkets to sell them.
China has 670 million women, of which 377 million are between the ages of 15 and 50. That's a massive market, dominated by sanitary napkins with its 98 percent market share. Some 140 billion sanitary napkins are expected to be used this year.
But there seems to be latent demand for tampons if Chinese women knew more about the product. One survey found that one in four non-users in China said they would likely try tampons if they were educated in how to use them.
