On May 24, “Financial World” weekly randomly checked some e-commerce websites and found that the retail price of disposable protective masks has been as low as 0.36-0.49 yuan. If calculated based on the current prices of melt-blown fabrics of about 300,000 yuan/ton and non-woven fabrics of about 50,000 yuan/ton, a disposable mask only costs about 0.3-0.4 yuan for three layers of cloth, and the profit has already been There is not much left. If the seller’s previous purchase price is even higher, selling at a loss is almost a foregone conclusion.
After entering the mask industry with an investment of tens of millions, three months later, the mask manufacturer said that Don’t invest anymore. Once a mask was hard to find, costs soared, and a large amount of capital and businessmen poured into the mask industry. Is it really depressed now?
The end of sudden wealth
Since entering the mask industry in February, Chen Fortunately, You became one of the first people to earn quick money from masks. Within three months, Chen You had invested tens of millions of yuan in the mask factory. At its most profitable time, one production line in Chenyou Factory could earn 5 million yuan a month, and six production lines could earn 30 million yuan a month.
Chen You used the term “national movement” to describe the mask industry he has experienced in the past three months. “People with money come to invest, and people without money borrow money at usury.” Doing it means making quick money, and in the best case, you can basically get your money back in 10 days.”
Around the Spring Festival of 2020, due to the impact of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, there were domestic The extreme shortage of masks has caused difficulties in finding one and soaring prices. The surge in market demand for masks has brought short-term market dividends and attracted a large number of speculators.
The self-media “Tech Planet” once reported the story of earning tens of millions a month and getting rich overnight by producing masks: “A mask machine produces 100,000 to 16 masks a day. It ranges from 10,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan. Based on the net profit of at least 1 yuan each, it is conservatively estimated to earn 100,000 yuan a day. The price of early mask machines was only hundreds of thousands or more than 200,000 yuan. Including raw materials, it can be made in two or three days. The capital is recovered, and the rest is a net profit.”
The huge demand has caused the cost of mask materials to be raised to “sky-high prices”. Usually, meltblown cloth is only sold for 20,000/ton. At the most expensive time, it was sold for 800,000 yuan/ton, a 40-fold increase. Non-woven fabrics with an original price of 10,000-20,000 yuan/ton are sold for 130,000-140,000 yuan/ton.
It is not only small businesses from various places that are entering the production of masks, but also large manufacturers. On January 31, BYD decided to switch to mask production and started the relocation on February 10. On February 17, BYD transformed the mobile phone production line in Shenzhen Baolong Industrial Park into a mask production line and began mass production. On March 12, the daily output It reached 5 million pieces, increased to 10 million pieces 12 days later, and climbed to 20 million pieces in late April, ranking first in global production capacity.
After the domestic epidemic was brought under control and the supply of masks improved, these mask players set their sights overseas again.
Data released by the General Administration of Customs show that from March 1st to April 4th, China exported 3.86 billion masks; from April 5th to April 30th, 3.86 billion masks were exported; 23.94 billion. In just two months, China inspected and released 27.8 billion masks for export, about three times the total global mask production last year.
In terms of anti-epidemic materials sold to the United States alone, from March 1 to May 5, China has provided more than 6.6 billion masks and 344 million pairs of surgical gloves to the United States. , 44.09 million sets of protective clothing, 6.75 million pairs of goggles, and nearly 7,500 ventilators.
It’s just that similar madness cannot last for a long time.
From 0:00 on April 8, Wuhan City “unblocked” and 75 exits from Han were opened. Before the May Day holiday, the emergency response level for public health emergencies in Beijing was adjusted from Level 1 response to Level 2 response. These signals that the epidemic situation is improving have greatly reduced the demand for masks. Coupled with the domestic production of 200 million masks per day, The market is becoming increasingly saturated, and small mask factories are being pressed harder and harder.
According to Jiemian News, the production capacity of masks included in government statistics and reported has become saturated, with daily output exceeding 300 million pieces. This means that the domestic mask market has seriously exceeded supply. Behind the easing of the mask supply conflict is the gradual recovery of China’s manufacturing capacity. Industrial and commercial registration data show that as of March 17 alone, the number of cross-border mask manufacturers has reached 15,528. More than 3,000 companies across the country have added “masks, protective clothing, disinfectants, medical equipment” and other businesses to their business scope.
At the beginning of May, Chen You clearly felt that the masks could not be sold. He said that 20 days ago, KN95 masks could still be sold for 7.5-8 yuan/piece. When the sales volume was the largest, someone would pick it up without packaging, and the recipient would re-package it themselves. Now KN95 has dropped to 4 yuan/piece. “You must not invest in a mask factory. Without good customer resources and outstanding qualifications, you will not be able to receive orders.”
Mask seller Zhou Jin deeply agrees, “It makes no sense to invest in masks in China now. It is better to invest in helmets. This kind of quick money mainly depends on luck. You have no luck waiting for you.” By the time I did it again, people had already made away the money.”
On May 24, “Financial World” weekly randomly checked some e-commerce websites and found that the retail price of disposable protective masks has been as low as 0.36-0.49 yuan. If calculated based on the current prices of melt-blown cloth of about 300,000 yuan/ton and non-woven fabric of about 50,000 yuan/ton, a disposable mask only costs about 0.3-0.4 yuan for three layers of cloth, and the profit has beenThere is not much left, and if the seller’s previous purchase price is even higher, selling at a loss is almost a foregone conclusion.
Quality Chaos
While quantity is saturated, quality concerns have also arisen. Since March, many European and American countries have had a crisis of confidence in the quality of Chinese masks. A group of sellers of Chinese anti-epidemic supplies have been blacklisted by cross-border e-commerce platform Amazon.
On the evening of May 8, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products announced the latest adjusted list of non-medical mask manufacturers authorized by the U.S. FDA. my country has obtained the U.S. FDA (Food) The number of non-medical mask manufacturers receiving EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) from the Food and Drug Administration has been significantly reduced, with only 8 remaining.
Subsequently, on May 9, the General Administration of Customs announced a list of enterprises and related products found to be unqualified for the quality and safety of exported anti-epidemic materials by customs across the country. The total number of masks involved reached more than 1.86 million, and 16 export companies and related production companies were named.
Chen You said, “Export control was not strict at that time. The factory thought that if it was made, people would want it, so it started to make it. Now it is like a brake, and everything is stopped. Some customers saw that the overseas market was not doing well, so they gave up their 1 million deposit.” Chen You heard from friends that there were also cases where the factory had a backlog of 8 million whiteboard masks that could not be sold.
“Financial World” weekly contacted Wu Jun, a seller of a whitelisted company as a buyer. Wu Jun said, “Now as long as it is linked to anti-epidemic materials, such as gloves, protective Clothes and masks all require qualifications, and those without qualifications will be blocked. Only manufacturers with formal procedures can export epidemic prevention materials, and products like those with three no’s can no longer be exported.”
Li Shi, a mask seller in Zhejiang, admitted that his factory is not qualified, but he said, “Qualified companies will come to us specifically to receive goods and then send them abroad, so we All products are qualified.”
Another KN95 mask seller who talked to “Financial World” weekly asked very directly “A mask that meets the standard or a mask that does not meet the standard” .” From February to April, market supervision departments in Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu and other places carried out special rectification activities for mask manufacturers, interviewing, suspending operations and rectifying many mask manufacturers.
On May 19, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a notice stating that it is necessary to rectify and standardize the order of meltblown cloth production enterprises in key areas to ensure the quality and safety of epidemic prevention supplies; to strictly investigate and punish illegal production and sales and illegal recycling and sales of masks and other anti-epidemic supplies and raw materials; severely crack down on “black workshops” and resolutely prevent substandard anti-epidemic supplies from entering the market.
Wu Jun said that when masks were in short supply, whiteboard masks with extremely low melt-blown rates and basically only dust-proof functions were not worried about sales. After rectification and media exposure of mask issues, Finally, consumers pay more attention to brand and quality. Copycat mask factories and small and medium-sized mask factories have lost their market offline, while masks from big brands such as BYD are in short supply in the offline market.
The future of winners
Contrary to the dilemma of small and medium-sized factories, masks produced by qualified whitelist companies have been sold at “sky-high prices.” In the QQ group for mask exchange, masks with high protection levels produced by mask factories on the FDA whitelist sold for nearly 100 yuan. The spot price of Sanqi’s N95 masks is 115 yuan/piece, and the price of Dasheng 3X N95 masks is 34.5 yuan/piece.
Chen You compared the masks produced by the white list to LV and Hermès bags, “A bag costs less than a thousand yuan but sells for hundreds of thousands. If you want to buy it, just accept it.” .”
Su Yun, a mask manufacturer in Fujian, said that when the epidemic first broke out, it was easy to get scammed by reselling masks. “Sometimes the scammer will ask you to pay a earnest money deposit, which is basically around 50,000. After paying the earnest money, he will say that there is no goods or that he needs to wait, and it will continue like this. We now know that there are no less than a dozen cases of these cases. Now.”
When it comes to Sanqi masks, Su Yun calls them “huge profits among huge profits.” “There are many people squatting in Sanqi Factory every day, waiting for goods.”
Su Yun said that now the Sanqi factory can produce a KN95 at a cost of up to For twenty or thirty yuan, if someone resells the mask and sells it for more than one hundred yuan, it is equivalent to making 70 yuan per mask. “Many people now want to resell KN95 abroad, but many people have been deceived by this thing. So I suggest you not to go into the muddy water, it is really deep.”
Some companies have already collapsed this spring. During the May Day holiday, a large mask factory closed down in Anqing City, Anhui Province. A video widely circulated online showed that boxes of masks were piled up in the yard, unable to be sold, and were opened and moved away by staff.
A mask welding machine seller in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province told Caijingtianxia Weekly that at the end of April, his original clothing business company bought the machine for more than 10,000 yuan per machine. We purchased more than 200 electric welding machines and received orders for tens of millions of masks. After half a month of production, we encountered a shortage of orders. Afraid of losing money, he now sold the machine for 3,000 yuan/unit. Twenty minutes later, the seller lowered the price to 2,650 yuan/unit.
It’s closed. A video widely circulated online showed that boxes of masks were piled up in the yard, unable to be sold, and were opened and moved away by staff.
A mask welding machine seller in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province told Caijingtianxia Weekly that at the end of April, his original clothing business company bought the machine for more than 10,000 yuan per machine. We purchased more than 200 electric welding machines and received orders for tens of millions of masks. After half a month of production, we encountered a shortage of orders. Afraid of losing money, he now sold the machine for 3,000 yuan/unit. Twenty minutes later, the seller lowered the price to 2,650 yuan/unit. </p
