Advertisement
Coronavirus Hong Kong
OpinionComment
David Dodwell
David Dodwell

Outside In | Spare a thought for the makers of masks and vaccines and the end of their Covid windfall

  • Don’t forget the makers of PPE, hand sanitisers, Covid equipment and more. All will see the end of bonanza earnings and some may have to close down
  • But governments will be happy to see the end of handouts

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
2
The price of face masks fell, as seen in a shop in Tsim Sha Tsui on February 28, after the government decided to scrap Covid-19 mask rules from March 1, after three years. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
David Dodwell

As most of us celebrate the end of Hong Kong’s mask mandate, we should perhaps spare a thought for the opportunists mourning the end of a nice little three-year earner.

Advertisement
In the early pandemic months, more than 200 Hong Kong companies making and supplying face masks were registered, as entrepreneurs anticipated a face-mask bonanza. But by the end of last year, just 20 remain, a number expected to fall further.

In China, home to half the world’s face-mask production, the first five months of 2020 saw more than 70,000 new face-mask makers. Heaven knows how many remain but since then, tens of thousands of face-mask jobs must have been lost. Hopefully, the return to economic normality will bring new jobs in replacement.

Last January, research group Statista provided a fascinating glimpse into the face-mask wave that came and went. It calculates that in 2019, global face-mask sales amounted to 12.5 billion, mostly going to hospitals and people working in dusty environments like construction sites and interior decoration. In 2020, unit sales leapt 30-fold to 378.9 billion, then to 402.1 billion in 2021. Last year, sales wilted to 147.5 billion, and is this year expected to fall to around 20 billion.

Revenues soared from a very modest US$1.4 billion in 2019 to US$224.1 billion in 2020 as demand far outstripped supply, and the price of a face mask jumped ninefold. As supply began to catch up in 2021, revenues fell back to US$128 billion, before collapsing last year to US$36.5 billion. Statista predicts sales will tumble to US$5.8 billion this year and US$4.2 billion in 2024 – still three times the revenue in 2019.
Advertisement

Of course, pandemic opportunism has not been confined to face masks. Makers of disposable surgical gloves, disposable gowns and other personal protective equipment (PPE) have experienced a glorious surge in earnings over the three Covid-19 years, as have makers of hand sanitisers, Covid-testing equipment, and thermal imaging cameras.

Advertisement