Moreal APP Releases '2019 Summer Student Aesthetic Medicine Report': Chongqing Tops in Spending Power, Guangzhou Leads in Hyaluronic Acid Sales
This report is compiled based on data from over 36 million users and more than 8,000 medical aesthetic institutions on the Gengmei platform during June, July, and August 2019, as well as survey data from 10,000 student consumers of medical aesthetic services, with the aim of providing insights into the trends and characteristics of the summer season and the student medical aesthetic consumer market.
The report highlights the following specific consumption trends:
1. The medical aesthetics market boomed in the summer of 2019, with Chongqing’s medical aesthetics consumers ranking first nationwide in average spending power;
2. Students account for half of the summer medical aesthetics consumer base, with the strongest demand coming from graduating high school and university students;
3. Minimally invasive aesthetic procedures become the mainstream of summer consumption, with facial slimming injections, hyaluronic acid fillers, and double eyelid surgery ranking as the top three best-selling medical aesthetic treatments;
IV. 70% of students undergo plastic surgery for “bread and love,” while 40% are driven by herd mentality;
5. Students lack awareness of risk protection and prevention; 30% inadvertently turn to illegal aesthetic medicine providers, and 70% undergo cosmetic procedures without verifying practitioner qualifications;
I. The medical aesthetics market boomed in the summer of 2019, with Chongqing users demonstrating the highest consumption power in medical aesthetics this summer
In the summer of 2019, the medical aesthetics market witnessed a surge in consumer demand. According to Gengmei’s “2019 Summer Student Medical Aesthetics Report,” order volumes for minimally invasive procedures, double eyelid surgery, rhinoplasty, and orthodontic treatment all showed an upward trend compared to the previous three quarters.
The top ten cities with the highest medical aesthetics spending power in summer are: Chongqing, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Xi’an, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. A city’s medical aesthetics spending power is calculated by dividing its total consumption by its order volume. With Guangzhou’s spending power indexed at 1, Chongqing’s reaches as high as 4.04, far surpassing other cities. This is primarily because residents of Chongqing show a stronger preference for major medical aesthetic procedures such as mandibular angle surgery during the summer, which significantly boosts the city’s overall sales revenue.
II. Students Account for Half of Summer Aesthetic Medicine Orders, with Fresh Graduates and Recent Graduates Showing the Strongest Demand
Among summer medical aesthetics consumers, 51% are students. Within this student demographic, recent graduates—arguably the group most affected by appearance-related anxiety—account for 41%, followed by college students. Medical aesthetics users under the age of 24 contribute nearly 40% of summer sales revenue; when combined with the post-90s generation, users under 30 account for nearly 80% of total summer medical aesthetics sales.
Male users account for nearly 20% of the student demographic, approximately 5 percentage points higher than their proportion among the overall user base. This indirectly confirms that young men represent a consumer segment with substantial growth potential in the medical aesthetics industry.
3. Minimally invasive aesthetic procedures become the mainstream of summer consumption, with facial slimming injections, shoulder slimming injections, and leg slimming injections being the best-sellers in summer
As students become the primary drivers of summer consumption, affordable entry-level medical aesthetic procedures—such as double eyelid surgery, rhinoplasty, minimally invasive treatments, and orthodontics—have gained significant popularity, with order volumes for these services far exceeding those in other quarters.
The Top 10 Most Popular Medical Aesthetic Procedures in Summer Are: Botulinum Toxin for Face Slimming, Hyaluronic Acid Fillers, Double Eyelid Surgery, Rhinoplasty, Skin Boosters, Laser Hair Removal, Hair Transplantation, Breast Augmentation, Botulinum Toxin for Leg Slimming, and Botulinum Toxin for Shoulder Slimming. Among them, Guangzhou claimed the title of the city with the highest sales of hyaluronic acid fillers during the summer, while Beijing and Shanghai emerged as the cities with the highest sales of hair transplantation and botulinum toxin for face slimming, respectively.
IV. 70% of Students Undergo Cosmetic Surgery for “Bread and Love,” While 40% Are Driven by Herd Mentality
The report indicates that 70% of students cited “securing a good job and a high-quality partner” as reasons for undergoing cosmetic surgery; 40% frankly admitted that their motivation included “medical aesthetics being a popular beauty enhancement method among peers, and not wanting to fall behind”; and 10% of students believed their reasons included “leveraging physical appearance to build a personal brand and become an internet celebrity.”
The report reveals some interesting findings: 46% of students fund their aesthetic medical treatments through personal part-time job income and savings, 28% receive financial support from parents and other relatives, and only 18% resort to online lending platforms such as Huabei and credit cards. This contradicts earlier reports suggesting a widespread prevalence of student loans for aesthetic procedures.
V. Nearly 70% of Students Fail to Verify Credentials, and Nearly 30% Fall Victim to “Illegal Medical Aesthetics”
According to student surveys, nearly 30% of students have encountered illicit aesthetic medical practices. The most common issues include being deceived into purchasing high-priced aesthetic procedures due to opaque pricing, inadvertently visiting unlicensed clinics, being unable to repay cosmetic surgery loans, and developing an addiction to plastic surgery. Notably, nearly 70% of students did not verify the qualifications of doctors or institutions when undergoing procedures, indicating a weak awareness of safety in medical aesthetics. The primary reasons include not knowing where to check the credentials of doctors and institutions, and placing undue trust in recommendations from friends.
According to the "2017 Black Paper on China's Medical Aesthetics Industry" released by the Gengmei App in 2017, the number of illegal clinics in China has exceeded 60,000, which is six times that of licensed clinics. The annual surgical volume of illegal clinics is 2.5 times that of licensed clinics, surpassing 25 million procedures. Approximately 40,000 medical malpractice incidents occur annually in illegal clinics, with issues such as surgical infections and severe scarring being commonplace.
As students represent the new generation of medical aesthetics consumers, all sectors of society should strengthen education on their awareness of medical aesthetic procedures. As a leading medical aesthetics platform in China, Gengmei App has always prioritized user education on medical aesthetics and the cultivation of safety awareness.
In fact, users can leverage the Gengmei App to access medical aesthetics knowledge, utilize Gengmei AI to customize personalized treatment plans, verify the credentials of doctors and institutions, authenticate pharmaceuticals and medical devices with a single click, and access cosmetic surgery insurance to enhance consumers’ risk protection and prevention awareness.
In guiding the medical aesthetics community to establish a proper aesthetic perspective and obtain suitable treatment plans, GengMei has not only built a new media matrix for medical aesthetics in the past, serving hundreds of millions of potential users interested in beauty, but also held the GengMei AI Launch Event on August 21 this year, publicly unveiling the “GengMei AI” suite of features.
“Gengmei AI” leverages Gengmei’s extensive big data on facial images, large-scale image datasets of medical aesthetic and plastic surgery procedures, as well as the professional aesthetic knowledge and expertise accumulated through deep engagement in the medical aesthetics industry. By utilizing advanced core AI technologies, Gengmei has developed the “Gengmei AI Brain.” This represents an upgraded, all-scenario AI-driven facial attractiveness perception and aesthetic analysis tool, following Gengmei’s industry-first launch of a plastic surgery simulator in 2017.
Gengmei has already launched features such as Gengmei AI Facial Intelligent Diagnostic Analysis and Gengmei AI Facial Intelligent Deformation Simulation. Consumers can use “Gengmei AI” to better understand their facial aesthetics and identify suitable aesthetic standards, while also obtaining personalized medical aesthetic treatment plans tailored to their needs.
About the Gengmei App:
Gengmei App, established in 2013, is China’s largest consumer healthcare platform, offering services in plastic surgery, minimally invasive procedures, dentistry, ophthalmology, and anti-aging treatments. Gengmei serves 36 million users, with nearly 20,000 professional doctors and over 8,000 institutions registered on the platform, which also features 4 million real-life cosmetic procedure diaries.
In 2018, the Gengmei app completed a Series D financing round worth tens of millions of U.S. dollars. Over six years, the Gengmei app secured five rounds of funding. Its investors across these rounds have included numerous listed companies and renowned investment firms such as Tencent, Sequoia China, CHJ Jewellery, Matrix Partners China, VV Capital, Meitu, Fosun Pharma, Legend Capital, and China Securities.
Below is the "2019 Summer Student Medical Aesthetics Report" from the Gengmei APP:
