New pads, liners handle light bladder problems

“We have designed the new product specifically to offer protection for women experiencing light bladder leakage [LBL], which affects one in four women,” marketing director Jiraroj Tikkawee said yesterday. “Kimberly-Clark is the first hygiene-product manufacturer to develop such an innovation and introduce it into the Thai market.” The manufacturer and distributor of health and hygiene products hopes to snare about 3 per cent or Bt150 million of the total sanitary pad and liner market within three years.
The market is currently estimated at about Bt4 billion to Bt4.5 billion per year.
Thailand is the “test market” for the new products because of the ageing of its population, Jiraroj said. The elderly are projected to surge from 8 per cent of the population in 2000 to 17 per cent by 2025 and more than 30 per cent by 2050.
Poise was launched in this region in Singapore and Malaysia a few years ago and has enjoyed annual growth of about 50 per cent.
The company is confident that Poise will gain very good consumer feedback here. “The move is to expand our market to cover the unmet need of females who experience light urinary leakage by targeting adult working women aged 35 and up,” Jiraroj said.
The sanitary pads already available in the market have not been designed to solve the LBL problem in women, so the company specifically developed its product to provide light protection with outstanding features and effectiveness, he said. Its Absorb-Loc offers twice the absorbency and provides a soft and dry touch to help women stay fresh and comfortable. A research paper presented by the Epidemiology Committee of the fourth International Consultation on Incontinence in Paris indicated that one in four women experienced LBL, which is in line with the survey conducted in Asean countries.
The survey showed that most of the women experiencing the problem were aged 35 and up. More than 30 per cent of them suffer the leakage problem at least once a week, and about 80 per cent have experienced light bladder leakage.
More than 93 per cent of LBL-affected women have used substitute products, which cannot serve their purposes, Jiraroj said.
“In many established markets, such absorbent pads and liners for light urinary leakage protection have a strong share of about 20 per cent of the total sanitary-pad market,” he added.