Overcapacity and market competition are becoming the most real backdrop for the hygiene and maternal-baby products industry. At the 2026 CHINA NPS Hygiene & Maternal & Baby Products Branch Annual Conference and the first Absorption Care & Hygiene Products Conference held in Shanghai on July 16, core enterprises revealed that despite being in a period of demographic shifts and deep adjustment, the industry maintained a positive trend through model innovation and technological iteration. This contrast signals an urgent shift from 'scale expansion' to 'efficiency-driven' growth.
Background: Strategic Shift from Single-Point to Systematic Innovation
Li Guimei, President of the China Nonwovens & Industrial Textiles Association (CNITA), clearly stated that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the industry achieved breakthroughs in bio-based absorbent materials, ultra-thin cores, fine-denier nonwovens, smart products, and functional finishing technologies. However, technological innovation has moved from single-point breakthroughs to a stage of systematic enhancement. This judgment means that the days of gaining dividends from a single material or process improvement are over.
Facing the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Li Guimei proposed five key points—innovation-driven, quality-first, green and low-carbon, digital empowerment, and collaborative development—which outline a new framework shifting from 'product competition' to 'system competition'. Yan Huarong, President of the CNITA Hygiene & Maternal & Baby Products Branch, summarized the branch's eight-year work path with the keywords 'height, length, and span', emphasizing a future focus on refining two core annual professional conferences to build efficient communication platforms.
Industry Impact: Dual Shocks of Technological Iteration and Channel Transformation
The conference released a dense array of technological signals. Trützschler's new generation carding machine NCX/NCTX, launched in 2025, directly targets pain points of hot-air production lines such as uneven web, cumbersome cleaning of arc plates, long downtime, and material waste. Its hot-air oven technology, designed specifically for hygiene materials, significantly improves product loft and quality consistency. This means equipment suppliers are proactively solving the long-standing industry problem of 'production consistency' for downstream factories.
Andritz's wet-laid flushable solution uses bio-based raw materials like wood pulp and viscose, with an annual capacity of 16,000 tons. Its neXformer double-diffuser system achieves optimal fiber dispersion at high speeds, directly responding to the global wet wipes market's demand for sustainability and bio-based natural fibers. For buyers, this is not just a technical option but a compliance tool for meeting EU and US environmental regulations.
In packaging and smart manufacturing, Shanghai Songchuan Fengguan's integrated line achieves a production speed of 1,500 pieces per minute while solving issues like product skew and packaging material waste. Futian Seiko's 'Four-Dimensional Intelligent Manufacturing' system focuses on glue-free, unmanned production and intelligent production lines for disposable underwear. When equipment efficiency jumps from a few hundred pieces per minute to 1,500, the industry's competitive threshold has been redefined.
Channel transformation is equally dramatic. Kang Shiqing, head of Douyin e-commerce's maternal and baby category, pointed out that the consumption habits of the new generation of parents have accelerated toward content-driven, scenario-based shopping, with short videos and live streaming becoming core decision-making arenas for maternal and baby consumption. Liangzi, an expert from Xiaohongshu's maternal and baby sector, emphasized that the key to future marketing is not exposure volume but reaching the right consumer group at the right time with the right content. These two pieces of information combined mean that for hygiene product companies traditionally relying on offline channels, failing to build capability in content e-commerce will result in losing the new generation of consumers.