Sex Toy shops getting common in China

Most sex toy makers have kept their company private in China, but one is planning to go public.

Zhejiang Lover Health Science is planning to list so as to expand sales of its own bedroom baubles, according to recent company filings and Quotes.

The manufacturer continues to be in recent years on a shopping spree, getting mature-focused companies including California-based Topco Sales in 2012. And executives have their websites on building bigger and better operations within China and globally, company statements say. Executives also say the company faces tough competition in the market.

Lover Health’s earnings peaked around $20 million, at 126 million yuan, in 2014, up 25% from a year earlier, based on company filings. The company did not react to requests for comment.

Pornography, banned in China, is not sold at the shops (although accessible in underground, and unexpected, places).

Premarital sex in China is increasing. Today, about 71% of respondents to a survey about sex by sexologist Li Yinhe said they’d premarital relations, according to local figures, up from 15% in 1989. Research from condom manufacturer Durex shows that 86% of over 2,000 respondents asked about attitudes said that healthy sex is a vital part of life.

As the younger generation in China accepts a more open stance on sex, one sex-shop chain called school graduate Ma Jiajia commenced Powerful and has garnered new customers.

Widespread Internet access in China has also broadened the market for mature products, creating an anonymous space for customers to get unmentionables. On Taobao, Alibaba’s ecommerce website, there are more tens of thousands of listings for sex toy firms.

International sex toy makers, LELO such a Swedish pleasure company, which sell JimmyJane, a startup from San Francisco, and vibrators costing upward of several hundred dollars , both have manufacturing facilities in China.

Lover Health touted how many products it produces in China, such as the Topco Glo-Glo A Go Go, an individual merchandise for guys that glows in the dark. That’s why going public is timely and certainly will put the organization in a good competitive situation, although the organization said in its filings the Chinese marketplace includes a ways to go before reaching adulthood.