Sales / usage figures for razors - electric v straight v safety v cartridge

[Pappa Piccolino]

Hello all.

I was curious to know if anyone knows which razor type is the most popular / best selling ? I did a google search, and could not really find anything. My gut feeling is that electric razors would still be the most popular by a fair margin, but I have no way of knowing.

I'm asking purely out of intellectual curiosity.

Thank you.

 

[silverlifter]

My money would be on disposables and carts. Electrics maybe in more wealthy countries, but it would still be daylight second.

 

[rbscebu]

Worldwide I say it would be "safety" razors first. They are very popular in India and China and just those two countries represent almost half of the men in the world who shave.

Often people is western societies forget that they are very much in the minority in the world.

 

[Mitzie]

Disposables then cartridge followed by electric and DEs, and shavettes. SRs SEs and other single blade razors trailing behind in the league

 

[Mr. Shavington]

I recall reading that electric shavers are by far the norm in China, so I would guess that electric is a bigger share of the global market than we think.

 

[Mr. Shavington]

Disposables then cartridge followed by electric and DEs, and shavettes. SRs SEs and other single blade razors trailing behind in the league

My guess would be that SE razors are much more common than DEs. There must be a big market still for disposable SE razors. Even just the free ones you find in airplane and hotel bathrooms must dwarf the DE razor market, surely.

 

[Lane101]

My guess would be that SE razors are much more common than DEs. There must be a big market still for disposable SE razors. Even just the free ones you find in airplane and hotel bathrooms must dwarf the DE razor market, surely.

Found this market research summary for the U.S. market, estimated at a total of $2.7 billion in 2021, that may be interesting as it is one of the few that actually lists safety and SE razors separately.

While the specific numbers are not posted the second chart posted below, from this same research, shows safety razors at around a 3-4% share and straight razors at about double that. Numbers that seem high and imply greater adoption of DE/SE shaving than other information we've typically seen. Could buy in to the safety razor figures but doubt the SE figures as, similar to electrics as noted below, purchase frequency is much lower for this category. Suspect some issues on how they classified their data.

Overall research supports that cartridges are the top category at 40% of the market followed by disposables and electric. Consistent with other research sources I've seen. Note that since electrics have lower purchase frequency that the dollars spent in a specific year understate the share of men using them - see 2nd paragraph of the quote from the post below.

Direct quote from the research:
"The cartridge razors category held the largest market share, over 40%, in 2021, registering revenue of around $1.2 billion, based on type. The major factors behind the popularity of cartridge razors in the country are their convenience and faster operation, and they also provide faster shave and are easy to replace and less prone to cuts. Effective marketing is another major reason behind the fast growth in demand for these razors, since a major chunk of the population in the U.S. is convinced of using multi-blade cartridge razors as compared to conventional single blade razors, as per latest studies.

Whereas, the market for electric razors is expected to register the highest CAGR, around 5%, during the forecast period. Due to significant advantages over other categories, including longevity and lower overall usage costs coupled with the growing beard trend, the U.S. populace is increasingly preferring electric razors. For instance, as of 2019, 80.22 million U.S. consumers used electric and battery shavers, and this number is further expected to increase to nearly 85.6 million by 2023."

Link to page:

U.S. Razor Market Size & Growth Forecast Report 2022-2030

U.S. Razor market size stood at $ 2,753.4 million in 2021, which is projected to advance at a compound annual growth rate of 0.96% during 2021–2030.

www.psmarketresearch.com

 

[Mr. Shavington]

Found this market research summary for the U.S. market, estimated at a total of $2.7 billion in 2021, that may be interesting as it is one of the few that actually lists safety and SE razors separately.

While the specific numbers are not posted the second chart posted below, from this same research, shows safety razors at around a 3-4% share and straight razors at about double that. Numbers that seem high and imply greater adoption of DE/SE shaving than other information we've typically seen. Could buy in to the safety razor figures but doubt the SE figures as, similar to electrics as noted below, purchase frequency is much lower for this category. Suspect some issues on how they classified their data.

Overall research supports that cartridges are the top category at 40% of the market followed by disposables and electric. Consistent with other research sources I've seen. Note that since electrics have lower purchase frequency that the dollars spent in a specific year understate the share of men using them - see 2nd paragraph of the quote from the post below.

Direct quote from the research:
"The cartridge razors category held the largest market share, over 40%, in 2021, registering revenue of around $1.2 billion, based on type. The major factors behind the popularity of cartridge razors in the country are their convenience and faster operation, and they also provide faster shave and are easy to replace and less prone to cuts. Effective marketing is another major reason behind the fast growth in demand for these razors, since a major chunk of the population in the U.S. is convinced of using multi-blade cartridge razors as compared to conventional single blade razors, as per latest studies.

Whereas, the market for electric razors is expected to register the highest CAGR, around 5%, during the forecast period. Due to significant advantages over other categories, including longevity and lower overall usage costs coupled with the growing beard trend, the U.S. populace is increasingly preferring electric razors. For instance, as of 2019, 80.22 million U.S. consumers used electric and battery shavers, and this number is further expected to increase to nearly 85.6 million by 2023."

Link to page:

U.S. Razor Market Size & Growth Forecast Report 2022-2030

U.S. Razor market size stood at $ 2,753.4 million in 2021, which is projected to advance at a compound annual growth rate of 0.96% during 2021–2030.

www.psmarketresearch.com

Interesting. Hard to be sure about some of the data without understanding how the categories are defined, but I find it hard to believe that straight razors sell more than safety razors. I can only guess they are counting blade sales (Artist Club and half-DE blade sales would constitute the ‘straight razor’ market, and DE blades would be ‘safety razors’), but even so, and assuming the professional barber industry consumes a lot of Artist Club blades, it still doesn’t seem like it would be as much as this.

 

[Brutus]

Having walked through supermarkets in the (what we commonly refer to as) Third World, it looked pretty obvious to me that cheap cartridge razors were in the majority, safety razor blades a distant second and virtually no SE or straight razors. Looking at the recent proliferation of Gillette Trac II, GII, Atra and Sensor ‘revivals’ under different names in Third World markets (where people may not be able or willing to pay for expensive cartridges with three or more blades) this seems to support my observation.

Considering that I talk about supermarkets, the lack of SE and straight razors may not be surprising, but I also found virtually no specialised shops selling safety or straight razor equipment in these countries.

While in many parts of the world it is not uncommon to go to a barber to get a shave, the most obvious blades here seem to be safety razor blades broken in half to fit shavette type razors.


B.

 

[Phoenixkh]

I only looked at a few shaving displays in Bali back in August so this hardly a detailed look at shaving in Indonesia but they had disposables and a couple Gillette cartridge razors I'd never seen before. I'll try to take some photos when we're back in April. There were no DE blades or razors, but this was just at a couple grocery stores or smaller convenience shops. I googled or tried to google, as it turns out, men's shaving supplies/stores in Bail but nothing came up. I might not have used the right word combination.

On a happy note: my wife found us a house to rent for 6 weeks, right on one of the lesser known Western facing beaches. They had goofed up on the pricing and we got it for less than half of its normal price. Since we'll be making our own breakfasts instead of eating out every morning, the cost differential between a simple hotel room and a two bedroom house is negligible. I was pretty amazed, truth be told. Sunsets every night... so cool. The last time, we had to take a taxi if we wanted to enjoy the sunset.

 

[Lane101]

Interesting. Hard to be sure about some of the data without understanding how the categories are defined, but I find it hard to believe that straight razors sell more than safety razors. I can only guess they are counting blade sales (Artist Club and half-DE blade sales would constitute the ‘straight razor’ market, and DE blades would be ‘safety razors’), but even so, and assuming the professional barber industry consumes a lot of Artist Club blades, it still doesn’t seem like it would be as much as this.

Agree completely, as noted in my original post of the research, the SE numbers don't make sense. You may be right that they are including half-DE blades for shavettes.

 

[Lane101]

Having walked through supermarkets in the (what we commonly refer to as) Third World, it looked pretty obvious to me that cheap cartridge razors were in the majority, safety razor blades a distant second and virtually no SE or straight razors. Looking at the recent proliferation of Gillette Trac II, GII, Atra and Sensor ‘revivals’ under different names in Third World markets (where people may not be able or willing to pay for expensive cartridges with three or more blades) this seems to support my observation.

Considering that I talk about supermarkets, the lack of SE and straight razors may not be surprising, but I also found virtually no specialised shops selling safety or straight razor equipment in these countries.

While in many parts of the world it is not uncommon to go to a barber to get a shave, the most obvious blades here seem to be safety razor blades broken in half to fit shavette type razors.


B.

Yes, in most Third World countries manufacturers have been aggressively working to shift the market away from DE to shaving systems so not surprised. DE/SE is still a significant part of the mix though and you can see that in on-line sites such as Jiomart in India. A key question is that in 10-15 years, when these countries are more fully shifted away from DE/SE to shaving systems is if the low cost DE blades we enjoy will still be readily available?

Note that the statistics I posted are for the U.S. market only.

 

[Tomo]

At my house there are

25 Straight Razors
4 Double Edge Razors
1 Single Edge Razor
1 Pair of electric clippers
1 Cartridge (not mine)

Based on this cartridges are very much in the minority.

 

[@ngel]

It also makes me think on the “back of the counter market”.

My dad used to buy his blades one at the time/once a week at the little corner store, so the guy never had the blades/razors on display, for safety reasons, and you only knew he would sell them if you asked.

When bigger stores ate the small corner stores, most of the guys still using DEs would get their blades from the local barber since he would buy in bulk and get them cheap, so my dad would get 5 or 6 blades along with his haircut, so in the market share it would show like one consumer but in reality it was quite a few.

 

[Pappa Piccolino]

Thanks gents.