P&G's Whisper quietly goes for premium quality

The booth of Procter & Gamble Co at an industry expo in Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]

Global household and consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co said it is making a drive to introduce into the Chinese market more high-tech and premium hygiene products for Whisper, its female-care range, to speed up the brand's focus on more lucrative premium products.

Hesham Tohamy, president of Greater China Feminine Care, said Chinese women are now very demanding about quality and are willing to pay more to get better quality.

"That's why Whisper is innovating and bringing (new) technologies into every lineup of our products," he said.

"Chinese consumers' expectations of high-quality products are the fastest-growing around the world," said Tohamy.

He added that the company would speed up the introduction of advanced technologies and premium products in China and manufacture products tailored for Chinese clients to satisfy their ever-increasing demands.

Whisper launched its foam sanitary pads in China recently. The product has adopted FlexFoam, a material that can absorb 10 times its weight in liquids and remain contoured to the human body, to eliminate leakage. The pads are currently only manufactured in Canada and Hungary.

Tohamy said that for the past few years the Chinese market's needs had advanced quickly and Whisper had not always kept up but was now moving to meet that demand.

"There has been a big shift in our commitment to meet but also to drive premium-quality (products) that consumers are looking for," he added.

China is the fifth country to sell the new Whisper foam pads after the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy. The company also said it plans to increase technological innovation in its product lineup and bring out more high-end products in the future.

P&G said earlier it had committed to investing in China to become more high-end in the consumer market, pushed by increased competition from other brands and premium products. The consumer group said competition had been hotting up, ratcheting up the pressure on the major players.

In fiscal year 2016, the US-based consumer goods company reported a 5 percent year-on-year decline in organic sales in China, its second-biggest market.

It said as a result it was set to enhance its group product portfolio with more product innovations and premium offerings.

Neil Wang, president of Greater China of market research agency Frost & Sullivan, said: "With increasing living standards and more and more health consciousness in China, women have higher demands of sanitary pads for their function, comfort, safety and health requirements."

The growing demand of consumers was, he said, stimulating a steady increase in the sanitary pads market.

Wang added that consumers tended to buy niche brands that complied with their individual wishes and requirements, while most of P&G's products were positioned at basic requirement levels.

He said that Whisper could achieve a comprehensive brand upgrade with the launch of the new pads to attract more consumers.

Wang added that P&G needed to undertake more detailed analysis targeted at consumers' needs in China, focus on its core business and innovate retail channels to realize the high-end transformation of its product base.