Infant Items and Content Market in Korea
The market for baby products and services has been growing even though the number of new-born babies has been dramatically decreasing.
Source: Statistics Korea
Source: Korea Institute for Industrial economics & Trade
In 2020, Korea recorded fewer than 200,000 new-born babies, the lowest for more than 50 years. The number of people opting out of marriage and married couples choosing not to have babies are increasing resulting in a total fertility rate of 0.84 in 2020. This means that a Korean female between the ages of 15 to 49 is expected to deliver only 0.84 babies.
IRC Consulting visited Cobe Baby Fair, one of the biggest off-line exhibitions in Korea in April 2021. The consultant observed new characteristics of the market at the fair.
Service market
Infant products market growth has plateaued due to the decrease of new-born babies. However, new services for infants and parents are growing. There are many service providers such as baby insurance, education & training, and assistance for new mothers.
Content
Intellectual property is playing a bigger role in infants related market. IP includes characters, education methodologies, theme parks and others. Toys are closely related to characters, stories and education methodologies. Contents need to achieve 2 goals, catching babies’ eyes and maintaining their interest, and providing educational.
COVID-19
The number of attendees was much smaller than at previous fairs. This is probably because expectant mothers and the parents of infants were much more careful about avoiding COVID-19 infection.
Off-line, in-person exhibitions and businesses are expected to return to normal with the rollout of vaccines and the decline of the pandemic. However, we can expect that baby related industries will remain 'untact' for longer and lag behind other sectors as parents of infants exhibit an overabundance of caution in avoiding exposure to the virus.
The 40th annual Cobe Baby fair was held at COEX in Seoul from 15 April ~ 18 April 2021.
Suite 1705, Officia Building, 92, Saemunan-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea 03186
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