Senior Care Products Designated as Next "Trillion-Yuan" Consumer Market

The "Implementation Plan on Enhancing the Supply-Demand Alignment of Consumer Goods to Further Boost Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), jointly issued by six departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission, was recently announced. The Plan proposes to form three trillion-yuan consumption sectors and ten hundred-billion-yuan consumption hotspots by 2027. Among these, the "three trillion-yuan consumption sectors" include senior care products, intelligent connected vehicles, and consumer electronics.

The designation of senior care products as a key area for cultivation and expansion in the coming period is related to China's gradual entry into an aging society. In 2024, China's population aged 65 and above reached 220 million, accounting for 15.6% of the national population. As societal aging deepens, the "affluent and time-rich" elderly consumers have already demonstrated considerable consumption potential.

Taking senior care products as an example, the market scale has grown from 2.6 trillion yuan in 2014 to 5.4 trillion yuan in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.3%, becoming a crucial pillar of the silver economy. Therefore, the Plan repeatedly mentions the need to "optimize the supply of age-appropriate products."

Firstly, the Plan recommends strengthening the R&D and design of age-appropriate products, focusing on developing and applying urgently needed products such as elderly care service robots, multi-functional nursing beds, and health monitoring equipment. Secondly, it suggests launching senior footwear and apparel that combines comfort, functionality, and style, food suitable for elderly chewing, swallowing, and nutrient absorption, and functional daily chemical products, all catering to the quality-of-life needs of the elderly. Furthermore, it proposes actions to benefit seniors and assist enterprises with high-quality senior products, promote home modifications for aging suitability, publish catalogs for promoting age-appropriate products and services, and encourage e-commerce platforms and supermarkets to establish dedicated sections or zones for silver consumption.

In fact, the development of age-appropriate products is already underway across multiple industries. For instance, medical device manufacturers have recently been focusing on addressing screening and treatment needs for diseases like cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. Multiple products exhibited at the 8th China International Import Expo were related to Alzheimer's disease (AD) screening.

To address the significant hearing health needs of the elderly population, multinational auditory health equipment manufacturers have also increased their investment in the Chinese market in recent years, while domestic hearing device companies are developing corresponding artificial intelligence products.