Asia Consumer Insights Q3 2020

We cover key FMCG trends in a variety of categories across China Mainland, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, India and Saudi Arabia.

 
Key highlights for this issue:

• FMCG in Asia sustains a positive growth by 3.1% in Q3 2020, yet seeing a slight slowdown compared to 4.8% in Q3 2019, particularly in North Asia and Southeast Asia.
   
• Food sector is leading the FMCG market, achieving an appetizing growth of 5.2% as compared to 3.4% in the same period last year, attributed to more cooking and eating occasions at home during COVID-19 time across almost all markets.
   
• Home care maintains its growth momentum at a growth of 7.6% for this quarter, which could be explained by consumer preference towards hygiene and cleanliness to defend themselves against COVID-19 viruses.
   
• The beverage and personal care sector experience a certain impact by the pandemic. Beverage suffers a decline of 3.0%, mainly driven by China Mainland. Meanwhile, personal care still grows yet at slower pace of 2.6% from 8.4% in Q3 2019, due to the negative performance in the top beauty markets in North Asia like Korea, Taiwan, and China Mainland.  
   
• Online shopping for FMCG products is thriving everywhere. Ecommerce is the fastest growing channel and gaining more ground in total retail landscape across markets from North Asia to Southeast Asia.
   
• Across the region, each market displays a different growth rate in total FMCG and across sectors. This is in line with the impact of COVID-19 had on movement, market trade structures (e.g. role of E-commerce) and the purchasing power of consumers in respective markets [refer to our previous publication on What Now, What Next].