Capital Bets, Industry Involution: The Beauty Device Melee of 2022
Capital Bets, Industry Involution: The Beauty Device Melee of 2022
Although the question “Is the beauty device an IQ tax” remains unresolved, beauty devices continue to thrive across social platforms.
Search for “beauty device” on Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) and there are 240,000 related posts; on Douyin, related videos have been viewed 4 billion times; on Weibo, the topic has reached 200 million views. Numerous celebrities, influencers, and streamers are planting seeds, doing unboxings, and horizontal evaluations; despite serious content homogenization, more and more new brands appear in these evaluations.
According to Magic Mirror market data, the beauty device market reached 11.18 billion yuan in 2021, and Zhiyan Consulting predicts that China's beauty device market will exceed 20 billion yuan by 2026.
Big water, big fish. According to statistics from China Home Appliance Network, there are more than 100,000 companies related to beauty devices, and over 80% of them were established within the last five years. Capital has also placed early bets on potential players: since 2014, there have been 28 financing events in the beauty device sector, and most brands have completed more than one round of funding.
Rapid industry development also brings complications. Recently, top beauty device brand Tripolar recalled 180,000 units due to potential skin burn risks under extreme conditions. Such issues are not unique to Tripolar; the mesmooth device was reported by Nandu to exceed standard temperature limits, and in a previous test by the Shenzhen Consumer Council, 6 out of 10 beauty devices had excessive levels of heavy metal nickel.
On one side lies a promising market and endless emerging brands; on the other, safety issues that undermine the industry's credibility. How will players on the beauty device track position themselves? With rapid industry growth, regulation is bound to tighten — what does the future hold for beauty devices?
Multiple players enter, industry-wide melee
Around ten years ago, a group of medical aesthetic salon brands began expanding into the home beauty device market.
In 2013, Japanese salon brand Ya-Man launched its first RF beauty device; another Japanese brand, Artistic & Co., successively introduced two beauty device brands, Dr. Arrivo and The Vzusa. In 2014, Israeli salon brand Pollogen's Tripolar hit the market, shaping the first generation of home beauty devices.
After entering the Chinese market through overseas shipping and proxy purchasing, these devices quickly became popular. Domestic brands seized this momentum. CosBeauty was one of the first brands in this space. In 2013, the company established dual headquarters in Shenzhen and Tokyo, launching its first ionic beauty device the following year. The brand FlowerFancy was born in 2015, and its first multi-functional beauty device has sold over one million units.
At the same time, domestic beauty salons entered a stock market era, and domestic beauty devices hitting this inflection point ushered in an explosion. More new local brands like AMIRO, Hua Zhi, and mesmooth began appearing in the public eye. Magic Mirror market data shows that the market share of domestic brands has increased significantly this year.
In today's overheated competition, domestic brands can be divided into four categories:
First, factories-turned-brands such as Notime, mesmooth, and JINDAO K·SKIN, which were originally OEMs for imported beauty devices. Since they mastered the technology early, they became the first wave of domestic brands. However, due to weaker R&D capabilities, some are now falling behind.
Second, small appliance brands expanding their categories: including Paiyen, Bear, SKG, etc. Although they have brand awareness advantages, consumers' perception of these brands remains more fixed, so their beauty device products have not yet reached the forefront of the industry.
Third, brands transitioning from medical devices. They entered relatively late but because of technical advantages, they have carved out a place in the market. For example, COMPER was founded in 2015, initially focusing on smart home health medical services, mainly through fertility monitors and fetal dopplers. It launched its first beauty device in 2018 but quickly caught up, targeting the high-end market.
According to new industry regulations, after April 1, 2024, RF therapeutic devices and RF skin treatment devices that have not obtained medical device registration (NMPA) may not be produced, imported, or sold. This could be a great opportunity for medical-device-oriented brands.
Fourth, local beauty brands. For example,丸美 (Marubi) launched the “Marubi Little Red Scorpion Essence” combining skincare and beauty devices in 2021; YGT (affiliated with Florasis) launched the anti-aging beauty device “OGP Timeless Skin”; PBA, under Meiyimei Cosmetics, incubated the beauty and body care device brand “MUSHU,” and so on.
At present, several major overseas brands and four large domestic categories are fiercely competing in the same market.
In terms of sales, Tripolar, Ya-Man, and Zeus (Dr. Arrivo) lead the pack; they focus on the mid-to-high-end market with higher unit prices. Their strong sales rankings during major shopping festivals over the past three years reflect their dominance. The key drivers behind consumer preference are deeper brand “credentials” and accumulation of R&D technology, enabling rapid product iteration. Ya-Man, for instance, has multiple series such as MAX, ACE, and Mizukoshi Drill, each updated almost every year.
However, the Matthew effect in the beauty device market has weakened; domestic brands have surged aggressively in recent years. Magic Mirror data shows that sales growth rates for Kosiim, COMPER, and AMIRO are considerable. Furthermore, during recent shopping festivals, COMPER has been threatening the top three, while other domestic brands see a major reshuffle each festival season.
The melee, reshuffling, and market competition are inseparable from varied marketing tactics; this explains why users now feel inundated with beauty device advertisements.
Platforms like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Weibo are battlegrounds. From information feed ads and influencer promotions to collaborations with top streamers and self-broadcasting, almost every beauty device brand is fully invested. For example, Tripolar and Ya-Man have worked deeply with head livestreamers; even without ultra-top streamers, Feigua data shows that Ya-Man's total GMV on Douyin live streams in the first half of 2022 reached 492 million yuan.
Beyond short videos and live streaming, celebrity endorsements and promotions are also common. Stars like Zhang Yuqi, Zhu Zhu, and Wang Ziwen posted product种草 videos on Xiaohongshu that garnered tens of thousands of likes. Appearances in variety shows are also frequent; for instance, Yu Kewen in season one of "Sisters Who Make Waves" and Ning Jing in season three gifted beauty devices to all cast members, sparking discussions on Xiaohongshu.
While high-level marketing may lead to overheated hype and heavy costs, that is clearly not the primary concern for brands in the current chaotic landscape. The market is vast but structure is far from settled, and involution among beauty device brands will inevitably continue for a long time.
What Capital Sees, Where the Industry Is Headed
The boom in beauty devices is objectively driven by surging market demand.
Under the backdrop of consumption upgrade and the “she economy”, women have higher standards for beauty, giving rise to personal care small appliances. Meanwhile, compared to skincare products, home beauty devices show more immediate and visible results; they are also relatively cheaper than salon treatments. The pandemic-induced stay-at-home economy further accelerated the growth of the home beauty device market.
With clear demand and a hot track, capital is naturally eager.
By incomplete statistics, from 2014 to the present, there have been 28 financing events in the beauty device track; 15 of those occurred from 2021 to now. Many domestic beauty device brands have raised multiple rounds: AMIRO has raised five rounds since its founding in 2015; CosBeauty has gone through four rounds; COMPER, Femoo, Yinfisi, JOVS, and others have raised two to three rounds — reflecting high capital expectations for the future of beauty devices.
Among the numerous brands, those favored by capital in recent years are mostly those producing RF (radio frequency) devices. RF devices primarily target wrinkle reduction and anti-aging, which precisely meets the biggest demand of current users. Most brands currently focus on this function.
At the same time, investors clearly prefer brands with strong R&D and technological capabilities, as such brands can launch new products and diversify product lines faster, seizing market share more aggressively.
For instance, COMPER, which has raised three rounds, introduced an intelligent beauty device combining RF, microcurrent, LED light therapy, and vibration technology as early as 2018, and linked it with a customized APP. CosBeauty, which has completed four rounds of financing, publicly states that it holds nearly 100 granted patents and has a highly diversified product portfolio including ionic beauty devices, IPL hair removal devices, and hair growth caps. Xiaomi Group, when investing in CosBeauty, said it valued a tech company with “strong product DNA and high growth potential.”
The industry outlook is bright, but for long-term healthy development, there are urgent problems that must be addressed.
First, a fast-growing industry inevitably attracts bad actors. On Black Cat Complaint Platform, there are over a thousand complaints about beauty devices, with high-frequency keywords such as counterfeits, inoperability, allergies, and burns. Therefore, the beauty device industry first needs a post-boom cleansing; products with weak technology must be eliminated by the market to improve the current state of uneven quality.
Second, the industry must confront excessive marketing. High marketing expenses force brands to face the problem of oversized spending dragging down overall profitability. Using Ya-Man as an example, its marketing costs have increased year over year for the past five years, with marketing expense ratios consistently above 40%. Moreover, excessive marketing harms brand and industry reputation; for example, last year Li Jiaqi was fined 300,000 RMB for promoting Tripolar with “misleading advertising language.” When top brands stumble, consumer trust in beauty devices as a whole is often shaken.
Third, the industry needs more comprehensive and standardized regulations. Due to the current lack of relevant standards, the functionality of beauty devices is constantly questioned. When combined with over-marketing relying solely on brand rhetoric, consumer trust is hard to build, which may actually slow the pace of increasing market penetration.
Moving from overheated chaos to healthy development, the industry will inevitably go through one or more rounds of “weeding out the false and retaining the true.” For brands hoping to endure cycles and survive in the long run, accumulating reputation and technology requires longer-term operational planning as well as greater investment in product quality and technology.
The content originates from TMTpost's “Titanium Media” column; it is for reference, communication, and learning only and does not constitute investment advice.
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