If the Top 10 Hold 70%, Don't Enter: How to Read Brand Concentration Before Picking a Hygiene Track

Start with the ruler I had to pull out of the set

In my last piece I handed you four rulers for picking a hygiene track — scale, trend, ceiling, and brand concentration. The first three are easy to grasp. The fourth — brand concentration — is the one that has me calling clients at odd hours to change direction.

It hides the deepest. Scale you can look up; trend you can feel. But “what share do the top ten brands hold together” — most people never check it, or don’t know where to look. Then the inventory sits in the warehouse and they realize they’ve been fighting for crumbs under giants who already staked their ground. (If you missed the four-ruler overview, it’s here: four rulers for picking a hygiene track.)

This piece pulls that one ruler out and explains it fully: what it is, why it’s a life-or-death line, how to check it — and, applied to hygiene, which sub-categories still have the door open.

One — In plain words: it’s “how much position is left”

Picture a category’s total market as a table. Brand concentration is how much of that table the top few brands have already taken. Two numbers are enough: CR5 (the top five brands’ combined share) and CR10 (the top ten’s combined share). CR stands for “concentration ratio” — don’t let the abbreviation intimidate you.

The logic is plain: the higher the share, the fuller the table. Users’ minds, shelf space, and search terms are all occupied by a few familiar faces, and a new brand can’t even get a word in on “why you.” The lower it is, the more users are still choosing — and that’s where the seam is.

So I drew myself a line, and it’s the first red line I give every founder:

If the top ten together exceed 70%, I’d advise against entering.

Why 70%? It’s an experience line I set after 25 years in FMCG and a few hard lessons — not a textbook law. The meaning is simple: when ten names already eat 70% of the plate, the remaining 30% is fought over by dozens, even hundreds, of players. Squeeze in, and you’ll struggle just to be seen.

Two — How to check it: don’t just Google one number

Many people check concentration by searching one number and running with it — that’s how trouble starts. You need to read three things:

1) The definition. The same “CR10” can be calculated by brand or by company (one firm may own several brands, counted as one); by sales value or by retail volume. Different definitions, wildly different numbers.

2) The channel. Full-channel or online-only? Online concentration is usually far higher — there are only a handful of entry points.

3) The trend. A single static number means little; watch whether it’s rising or falling. Rising means the cake is being gathered by the leaders and the window is closing; falling or fragmenting means new players are still tearing open gaps.

Where to look? I usually check four sources: retail-data houses like Euromonitor; brokerage research (China Merchants Securities, Zhongtai, and similar); third-party industry research institutes; and listed companies’ annual reports — the filings of hygiene firms like Baiya, Kaili (Cocare), and Haoyue carry the most grounded category data in their industry sections.

Three — Applied to hygiene: same name, very different temperatures

With the method in hand, straight to the hygiene data. You’ll see a counter-intuitive fact: all called “hygiene products,” but the sub-categories are nothing like the same temperature.

Sanitary pads — looks the most crowded, but is actually a “retail-investor plate.” By public estimates, the top ten sanitary pad brands together hold roughly 33% as of 2025 (industry reports put it around 37–41% a few years earlier), and even the long-time category leader holds only about 7–8%. Contrast that with mature markets, where concentration runs far higher: in Japan a single leader (Unicharm) holds roughly half the sanitary pad market, and in the United States the top two brands together account for over 40%. On share, the door isn’t shut — a domestic challenger grew from under 1% share year by year. But remember: fragmented share ≠ fragmented mindshare. Names like Sophie, Space 7, and Whisper are already welded into users’ heads. So the sanitary pad opportunity isn’t “take the leader’s seat” — it’s “take a scene the leader hasn’t occupied.”

Baby diapers — a “loose-then-tight” story. By Euromonitor, brand CR10 fell from 60.9% in 2015 to 49.7% in 2020, then climbed back to 58.8% in 2022 — down, then up. Domestic challengers (babycare and similar) rode the e-commerce shift for a wave, and now the leaders are gathering again. Add falling birth rates and the difficulty is rising. Look only at JD.com’s online channel and baby diaper CR10 has at times approached 80% — online is already a red ocean.

Adult diapers — top five around half, long tail still scattered. Public research puts the top five companies at roughly 50%, with Hengan and similar settled in the first tier; below them a large field of regional brands and eldercare-channel players are still tearing open gaps — far from “a few names decide everything.” With aging demographics and low penetration, this is a plate still growing and not yet settled — relatively friendly to newcomers.

Menstrual pants / period pants — structure unsettled, growth still the most certain. Third-party reports put the global disposable pant market’s CAGR at around 10% over the next few years. Products of this “pant” type are still in the education phase, with no absolute dominant ruler — the classic “users still choosing new brands.”

Sub-category	Top concentration (public estimates)	Trend	What it means for a newcomer
Sanitary pads	Top 10 brands ~33% (2025)	Share fragmented, mindshare concentrated	Don’t fight the leader — take a scene
Baby diapers	Brand CR10 ~50–60% (higher online)	Down then up; birth rates falling	Harder; online already a red ocean
Adult diapers	Top 5 firms ~50%	Growing, structure unsettled	Long tail still scattered; room to enter
Menstrual / period pants	Structure unsettled	High growth (~10% CAGR)	Users still choosing; window open

(One more reminder: agencies differ on definition — some count by brand, some by company, some online, some full-channel, and the years vary. Catch the big number and the trend; don’t fuss over a percentage point.)

Four — Three rules you can use directly

Rule 1: Check the red line first. Top 10 combined > 70% — unless you hold a disruptive advantage (new tech, new channel, strong supply chain) — don’t force your way in.

Rule 2: Then read the trend. Concentration rising = door closing, enter early or not at all; falling or fragmenting = positions remain. The baby diaper “down-then-up” arc is a living textbook.

Rule 3: Share ≠ mindshare. Sanitary pads are the textbook case: share fragmented, mindshare concentrated. In such industries, fighting for share head-on is hard, but circling the leader’s mindshare to occupy a scene it doesn’t cover is easier. So for sanitary pads my advice has never been “don’t do it” — it’s “don’t collide on the main category; make a small cut in the segments.”

Five — Finally: use this ruler on your own track

By now you may ask: so which one do I actually do? My answer is the same — no universal answer; you measure sub-category by sub-category.

The main sanitary pad track has fragmented share but hard mindshare; it’s a game of efficiency. Baby diapers, drift outward. Adult diapers, menstrual pants / period pants, and disposable underwear — these have low concentration and climbing penetration; the door is still open.

The greatest value of the concentration ruler isn’t telling you “can you do it” — it’s telling you where to wedge in.

If you’re weighing a hygiene brand of your own and want to measure the concentration of your track, I’m Li Genyuan, Foreign Trade Manager at Guangdong Nafei Industrial Co., Ltd. Nafei runs an integrated manufacturing-and-trading operation: our own brands on one side, and OEM/ODM for sanitary pads and menstrual pants on the other, produced at our Guangdong facility. When you’ve measured your track and you’re ready to produce, our OEM sanitary pads and private-label sanitary products lines, together with our menstrual pants manufacturer and sanitary pads manufacturer capabilities, are built for exactly this.

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