American brands in China face are facing a threat from local brands offering innovative products at lower costs. Brands like Apple, Starbucks and Procter & Gamble's Pampers are being challenged by local brands, potential threat to the hundreds of billions of dollars US firms make in China. Analysts from Bain and Kantar say, local brands usurped almost three-quarters of China's 639 billion yuan ($97 billion) market for FMCG - a category that includes items like soft drinks and shampoo - last year, up from two-thirds in 2013.
US products like Pampers, Colgate toothpaste and Mead Johnson infant formula saw their market share drop around 10 percentage points in the past five years. The data was based on a survey of 40,000 urban households. Chinese brands like SeeYoung, offering a popular silicon-free shampoo, and Pechoin, a maker of skincare products that plays up local ingredients, gained rapidly.
