The detergent and cleaning products market in Italy

The cleaning products market is an extremely complex market, shared between many demand players, which may be private individuals or professional actors, but also characterized by a very large offer and many product families. Consumer hygiene represents a large portion of the cleaning products market in Italy: this is why this study focuses mainly on cleaning products for individuals.

The Italian market for detergents and cleaning products has been witnessing a constant downturn since 2011, with a cumulative decrease until 2017 of -11%. The recent time span though registered a slow growth, in 2019 it experienced +0.9% increase in value. The market presents differences in terms of geographies, product categories and distribution channels.

There are extensive differences in growing evolution in relation to the distribution channels, drugstores in fact appear to have been in 2019 the only store format to experience growth (+6.4%). An important determinant of the market evolution is its structure: highly concentrated in the hands of a few multinationals, with the first 5 players owning circa 56% of the industry sales. Moreover, the market is very strongly characterized by product innovation, which is driving the performance of entire categories, but also by the gradual migration of supply and demand towards a greener and more ecological sub-segment, although this remains a minority on the shelf for the time being. The outbreak of COVID-19 has been positive for the market, with all product categories experiencing fast growth compared to the previous year between +14%-+18%.