（Chinese Version）

Editor’s Note:

Since 2014, the sex toy industry in China has been witnessing big changes and major developments, ranging from the launch of Chunshuitang’s iball, Kegel koro ball, Leiting smart vibrator, to the enormous crowdfunding campaigns on JD finance and Taobao crowdfunding site. The crowfunding that sex toy industry is receiving varies greatly, which can be just merely a couple hundred thousand RMB or as much as over millions. Everything seems to change incredibly fast. In 2014, Chunshuitang crowdfunded over 2 million RMB in a month while Leiting smart vibrator raised the similar amount of money within 3 days. Sex toy industry in China has quietly turned into an extremely lucrative market and it’s growing at a shocking speed.

One particular girl named Ma Jiajia literally turned the whole situation for sex toy industry in China. The media puts a number of labels on her, including “gaokao [college entrance exam] champion of Chinese in Yunnan province”, "top student from Communication University of China," and "post-90s beauty." All these titles had given her unprecedented influence for the fact that she’s associated with sex toy industry, a rather embarrassing topic to be brought up in China. Before Ma Jiajia was put to the center of public attention, anything related to sex cannot be discussed publicly, let alone sex toys, which made the nation's sex toy industry only develop "out of sight" for a very long time. However, after catching media spotlight, Ma Jiajia was then regarded as an industry pioneer and an entrepreneur with Internet thinking that knew how to promote herself through social media. She led the industry out of the shadow, which is why most stakeholders within the industry should really be thanking her even though there may not seem to be any instant change.

According to a few friends of mine from the technology sector, sex toy industry insiders generally divide the history of sex toys in China into three periods. Ma Jiajia is the middle point that changed things significantly. Before she was introduced to the industry, sex toy makers hid in the shadow and always kept a low profile. When Ma emerged to public attention, the industry finally made its first step toward the open light. And after Ma had achieved a few accomplishments, the industry started to boom like crazy. During the peak period, China was the top producer of sex toys in the world, with 95% of the world's sex toys being manufactured here. Surprising, isn’t it? What’s more, even though Chinese manufacturers had a large share in the global market, there wasn’t any well-known brand among them until Ma Jiajia came along.

It seems that after Ma Jiajia had entered this field, more and more sex toy makers were beginning to walk out of the shadow and entered the public arena. At present, they can even discuss sex toys with the media publicly, treating them as mere products no different from other smart devices. The wide spread of smart phones and innovations of mobile Internet stimulated the awareness of branding. Thus, increasing number of sex toy manufacturers start to develop their own smart sex toys. They have already made the transition from being pure OEM to brands that can compete directly with international heavyweights. Crowdfunding has become a trend among Chinese manufacturers, which is quite amazing, for the fact that the Ma Jiajia literally single-handedly triggered this chain reaction.

Since 2014, the sex toy industry in China has been witnessing big changes and major developments, ranging from the launch of Chunshuitang’s iball, Kegel koro ball, Leiting smart vibrator, to the enormous crowd funding on JD, crowfunding site and Taobao crowfunding. The crowfunding that the sex toy industry is receiving varies greatly, which can be just merely a couple hundred thousand RMB or as much as over millions. Everything just seems to change incredibly fast. In 2014, Chunshuitang crowdfunded over 2 million RMB in a month while Leiting smart vibrator raised similar amount of money within just 3 days. The sex toy industry in China has quietly turned into an extremely lucrative market and it’s growing at a shocking speed.

Starting Point: four major companies dominated the market

The sex toy industry in China can date back to the 1990s. In 1993, not long after the reform and opening policy was initiated in China, a mysterious and small shop named Adam & Eve Health Center that’s no bigger than 30 square meters appeared on the Zhaodengyu Road in Beijing. The founder of this seemingly strange shop was Wen Jingfeng, known as “the Condom man”. The China back then didn’t have the concept of a sex shop and therefore Wen had to apply for a business license claiming that he’s opening a department store. Since then, Wen had been constantly considered as a hooligan while leading China to a brand new era.

Just like when people feel thirsty, they drink water, sex is a normal thing. But in China, it was forbidden ground. In the western world, about 40% of people are using or have used sex toys before. When there are needs, there will be a market. As a newly emerged industry in China, there are surely huge market potential for adult products and sex toys. After Adam & Eve Health Center was founded, the sex toy industry in China subsequently started to boom rapidly. Soon after that, four major companies grew to dominate the market. At that time, most sex toy companies in China were OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer). Major companies such as Liaoyang Baile, Wenzhou Ailv, Shenzhen Jimei, and Shenzhen Xiaqi were thriving at an incredible speed even given the conservative cultural background of China. Very soon, these four major companies were regarded as the four biggest sex toy companies in China. Besides them, other small and medium-sized vendors such as Adam&Eve, Eden, Renshengyuan, Huanxitang also rose from the ground and entered the booming market.

Some media estimated that during its peak time, the market volume of sex toy industry in China took up 95% share of the global market. However, those products were only made-in-China. Companies didn’t have a clear understanding of the importance of branding. The social environment was very complex, and we can literally say that the sex toy market was a complete mess though booming. The ice age soon hit the industry. The lack of major brands made it difficult for companies to keep their businesses substantial, which resulted in huge negative impact on the whole manufacturing industry.

Even the very person that first started to manufacture sex toys in China then turned to make bamboo toothbrush instead at that time. The founder of Xiaqi, one of the four biggest sex toy companies in China, went into afforestation. As for Ailv, the company was struggling to transform itself into a brand and channel operator. However, from the aspect of its sales performance on Taobao, Ailv is clearly still suffering from its transition process. Jimei’s market share was threatened by manufacturers from southeastern Asia for the fact that it’s losing its edge as an OEM.

Only Baile remains on top. But still, it lacks core competence. Without original and innovative products, Baile won’t last long. Channel brand Adam&Eve also tried to break the ice by launching the One Hundred Cities, One Thousand Shops campaign, which didn’t work out well either. By 2008, Edem and Renshengyuan had disappeared from the market.

The era of Ma Jiajia: pioneering China’s sex toy industry

After the chaotic period of sex toy industry, Ma Jiajia, a post-90s girl, was put to the center of the public attention. The media puts a number of labels on her, including “gaokao champion of Chinese for Yunnan province”, "top student from Communication University of China," "sexy and smart" and "post-90s beauty." Ma Jiajia first started her sex toy business by opening a sex shop near her university. Later on, her business expanded and eventually she founded her own company, Powerful.

As a post-90s girl, Ma Jiajia was also born and raised in an environment full of Internet access just like her peers, which allowed her to become a netizen naturally. What sets her apart from other young entrepreneurs is that she received systematic education on communication in college, which enabled her to utilize Internet thinking and social media, and eventually cracked open numerous media resources that helped her promote her brand later on. She used her personal charm and eye-catching body to change people’s attitude toward sex toys, literally redefining everything for ordinary people. To the mass media, Ma Jiajia is a celebrity similar to Aoi sola, Mu Zimei, and Shi Hengxia, but of course, she’s so much more than that. There are a lot of labels and concepts being imposed on Ma Jiajia, and she herself is full of drama smells like sex, all of which contributed to her success as a dark horse in the industry. She basically became famous overnight, and also made sex toys more appealing to people than ever before.

Ma's first sex shop was opened near her university, right on the day she graduated from college. When the shop finally started to run and costumers began to flock in, Ma was leading her staff, mostly her classmates, in blowing up condoms as colorful balloons to celebrate the opening day. She also used new media such as WeChat to promote her brand. Besides that, she hired many smoking hot foreigners to stand by the door to draw attention. Moreover, she put instructions on how to become experienced in sex on the shelves, which drummed up great interest of her customers. On Ma Jiajia’s Weibo, there are many ugly selfies as well as sexy photos of her. On social media, Ma Jiajia likes to voice her sarcastic comments, one of which reads: “Why starting a business? Because I don't want to work with idiots like you!” She kept on testing journalists’ limit and still remains a popular celebrity online. She also went to the reality show You Are the One as a guest, making constant appearance on TV. It does seem like she’s going off the track, right? Most things she has done recently had nothing to do with the sex toy industry.

Unfortunately, things kind of went down for her since 2014, only 2 years after she founded Powerful. Ma Jiajia now seldom talks about Powerful or sex toys on social media. In a recent interview, Ma repositioned Powerful as a media company. It didn’t surprise anyone since communication is what Ma’s good at. The problem is that she’s not a good product manager and made the wrong decision at the right time. She’s an excellent media player. She kept going on about her products originally from big brands in America and Germany, making use of consumers’ preference toward overseas products. She’s indeed manipulating the consumers with media approches. However, she lacked basic business judgment like how physical differences between Asians and westerners would impact the business. Ma Jiajia built a we-media brand, and it’s bound to fall apart if nothing’s going to be done to change the tide.

The capital era: crowdfunding stimulates the business

Although the booming and chaotic time has become a past tense, some positive impacts remain still. Ma Jiajia brought fresh ideas and concept into sex toy industry, pushing it to realize the importance of branding. On April 3 this year, a grand and pinky vibrator advertisement displayed on the front page of Taobao shocked the entire China. It was a crowdfunding project from Leiting smart vibrator. The company launched 11 products into the market at the same time, and raised about 2 million RMB within just 3 days. This huge success subsequently gets people to think: does this mean the era of adult products is finally coming?

After Ma Jiajia had become a celebrity, some sex toy makers then stepped forward and started to express their ideas openly to the media. Leiting Smart Vibrator is the very example of that. Leading figures like Yang Haifeng no longer hides himself. For a long time, he hasn’t been able to tell his friends what exactly he makes even though people within the industry more or less know that he was even once an advisor of Durex and had assisted the company to design vibrators for Chinese people. To raise more money, Yang came out of the shadow with his team. The time has changed, and sex toy industry is no longer filled with caution and doubts, instead, it’s now an industry full of ambitions.

In recent years, the sex toy industry has become a hotspot for technology start-ups. In August 2013, Daxiang Condom received a couple million RMB angel investment from TXDVENTURES, while in May, Xing Jia Bi, an e-commerce platform that only sells sex toys, received a ten million RMB angel investment from a foundation in Shanghai. In fact, the figures mentioned above might seem small if we compared them to those of technology sector, but the gathering momentum will probably change over time. What investors worry about is that this is an uncharted water even though Chinese people are starting to get used to the idea of sex toys. In 2015, Taobao crowdfunding site raised a total of over 2 million RMB in just 3 days, which is something that few people could imagine a year ago.

By November 2014, Magic Motion’s smart kegel koro ball had raised over 100 thousand RMB and accumulated 226 supporters. And very soon, Wolkamo, a company dedicated to the Internet of things and interactive sex products, also came online and began to launch crowdfunding campaigns. In January 2015, masturbation cups maker Qu You also set to crowdfund on JD finance. Later in May, Leiting smart vibrator, specially designed for women, was launched on the Taobao crowfunding site. From koro ball to vibrators, the public has been seeing a large amount of new sex toys, and has gradually got accustomed to such things.

Mysterious and secretive, those were the impressions left in people’s mind about the sex toy industry in the old days. Now, we have a thriving and energetic market. Sex toy industry in China has a very short history of no more than 20 years. But surely, it grows, and grows fast with numerous newly developed smart sex toys being launched into the market every month. Capital has been a powerful catalyst for the industry. Inspired by the success of smart phone industry and mobile Internet sector, sex toys makers are now able to make innovations accordingly and seek new business explosion points. However, it remains unknown whether this new industry will grow to become stable and prosperous in the future. I guess we just have to sit tight and keep observing as the show goes on.

（The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @Shi Tianhao, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.)