Ying Sang, CBE Deputy General Manager

China beauty Expo, which was acquired by Informa in 2014, has steadily grown from the main Chinese beauty event to major international fair. “In just three years the trade show has added to new halls (about 100,000 sqm) taken the entire exhibition centre and now totals 250 000 sqm, making it the biggest B2B beauty trade show in the world,” explains Claudia Bonfiglioli, the show’s International Director.

Brands and sub-contractors

This year’s edition hosted more than 3,000 exhibitors including cosmetic ingredients suppliers, formulators, packaging suppliers, manufacturers of machinery and equipment, OEM/ODM/OBM and brands.

The supply side was gathered under the CosmeTech banner, representing about 1,000 exhibitors, including 30% international companies such as Intercos, Fiabila, Albéa, Cosmax, HCT, etc.

Made in China packaging and machinery is attracting buyers from India, the USA and elsewhere as they have become more innovative and qualitative,” emphasizes Ying Sang, CBE’s Deputy General Manager.

As far as finished products are concerned, the show hosted over 2,000 exhibitors with a Hall entirely dedicated to trends and innovation (N5) and another to E-Commerce and WeChat (E6). This Cosmetics section gathered both products dedicated to the retail markets and products for the professional market. Skin Care and Toiletries remain the biggest sectors of the show followed by Color Cosmetic, Hair Care and Accessories.

More international and more innovative

Claudia Bonfiglioli, CBE International Director

Informa aims at bringing more international exhibitors and visitors to the Chinese show. “The Cosmetics sectors welcomed 20% international exhibitors with the biggest contingent coming from neighbouring Korea accounting for 302 companies. There are also new country pavilions, which were brought to the show in recent years with Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan for instance,” highlights Claudia Bonfiglioli.

France, which is still considered by Chinese professionals as the initiator of innovations in Beauty, was the country of honour this year.

In order to promote innovation, the organizers partnered with design agency Cent Degrès to create a Beauty District at the heart of the show, to host a museum (in partnership with Grasse Fragrance Museum), a library (Scent Library) and a beauty village. The aim was also to offer visitors a different feel, right next to innovative concepts/brands in Hall N5.

Massive numbers

CBE 2017 attracted 412,500 visitors from 80 regions and countries hailing from all buying networks, including department stores, shopping malls, supermarkets, specialty and chain stores, beauty salons, nail salons, SPA, hair salons, plastic surgery hospitals, e-commerce, manufactories, supply chain decision makers and purchasers, R&D researchers, packaging designers, design agencies, etc.

Recognised for its dynamic growth, China Beauty Expo offers opportunities to Chinese and International exhibitors to meet qualified local and international buyers. We have created a unique program of conferences and networking opportunities to federate the worldwide beauty industry. The mission of the show is to reaffirm every year its leadership in Asia and to federate global industry players from manufacturing to finish products and distribution,” states Ying Sang.

China Beauty Expo has known a huge increase recently in quality and numbers and is the impressive demonstration that the Chinese market is moving fast and catching up with the rest of the world. Chinese companies are innovating and Chinese brands are coming into the global market with unlimited means in terms of people, money and willpower.

Beauty and mobile devices

The Chinese market is increasingly led by mobile devices with the boom of online/mobile transactions in the last 2 years (+62,2% in 2016). Chinese consumers were late adopters but jumped from cash to mobile payments. WeChat has become a dominent player with over 1.1 bilion users (as of January 2017) and offers features such as payments, shopping and exchange platform for users, on top of social media features.

In practice, it means that an individual can become a cosmetic retailer in just a few clicks. Testifying of this phenonemon the Hall dedicated to E-Commerce and WeChat welcomed brands exclusively available on the platform with the example of Mageline being the biggest brand on WeChat today!