Alibaba’s B2C retail platform T-Mall will introduce over 2,000 new maternal and child brands in 2019, 36Kr reports. The company is also cooperating with brands to create 500 customized T-Mall products and plans to run 50 special sales a year over the next three years, selling over one billion items.
T-Mall’s fast-moving consumer goods general manager Hu Weixiong said maternal and child care users had passed 200 million people, with 30 million new users added in the past year and a high proportion being born after the 1990s.
The platform’s promotion of maternal and child brands coincides with the Chinese government’s encouragement for couples to have children. The country seeks to address demographic challenges, including an aging population and shrinking labor force.
Last year, China’s birth rate reached its lowest point since 1961, with 15.23 million new births, down from 17.23 million in 2017. Authoritative figures on China’s fertility rate are hard to come by, though it’s estimated to be between 1.2 and 1.7, below the US (1.8) and India (2.3).
Beijing began relaxing its one-child policy in 2014, eventually replacing it with a two-child limit in 2016, and is rumored to be ending birth limits altogether by 2020.