SHANGHAI, July 21, 2026 — The PCT 2026 Personal Care Technology Convention, hosted by Ringier Industrial Media, concluded successfully on July 15–16 in Shanghai. Kila Li, Associate Director at CIC, delivered a keynote speech titled From Ingredient Innovation to Efficacy Asset Accumulation: New Value Transformation Pathways in the Cosmetics Industry, sharing forward-looking industry insights and actionable frameworks with on-site practitioners.
Structural Shift in China's Beauty Market: Efficacy Stratification Reshapes Competitive Dynamics
As China's beauty and personal care market enters a phase of structural growth and value upgrading, consumer understanding of skincare benefits has grown increasingly granular. Rational, precision-driven skincare has emerged as a defining industry trend, driving a clear two-tier split across the skincare efficacy landscape.
Stabilizing benefits centered on moisturization, soothing and barrier repair form the staple demand base of the market, delivering steady, resilient scale. Meanwhile, corrective benefits represented by anti-wrinkle, firming and brightening have become core growth segments for brands to build differentiation and unlock incremental upside. Backed by higher average selling prices, stronger technical barriers and greater proprietary ingredient potential, they represent the primary battleground for premium market share. This demand-side stratification is shifting industry competition beyond channel access and marketing efficiency, toward ingredient innovation, formulation expertise and clinically validated efficacy evidence.
From Ingredient Innovation to Efficacy Assets: Mapping the Full Value Conversion Chain
Building on this industry trend of efficacy stratification, Kila Li outlined a complete value transformation pathway from novel ingredient R&D to long-term efficacy asset accumulation.
While new cosmetic ingredient filings in China have expanded year on year, generic commoditized ingredients can hardly build lasting brand moats. Innovative functional ingredients, by contrast, unlock greater potential for differentiated product positioning and consumer efficacy recognition. Biological fermentation, chemical synthesis and polypeptide technologies are currently the key directions driving ingredient innovation. An enterprise's capabilities in R&D, application and commercialization directly determine whether technical breakthroughs in ingredients can be translated into long-term efficacy assets with sustained commercial value.
Kila Li further mapped out the end-to-end value transformation chain from consumer demand insight to continuous product iteration: brands can leverage big data to capture real-world consumer efficacy needs, and deploy frontier technologies such as AI to enable customized ingredient R&D, scientific formulation design, and rigorous safety and efficacy verification. This approach supports targeted product launch and continuous iteration, enabling ingredient technologies to embed effectively into product portfolios and gradually accumulate into verifiable, reusable, consumer-recognized brand efficacy assets — realizing efficient conversion from “ingredient innovation” to “commercial value”.
The presentation garnered strong recognition from on-site attendees. Combining professional depth with practical applicability, it mapped out the development trajectory of cosmetics technological innovation and value upgrading, delivering actionable strategic insights for personal care and beauty enterprises across the value chain to deepen innovation capabilities and build long-term brand competitiveness.
About CIC
CIC is a professional consulting firm offering tailored end-to-end support across the full investment and financing lifecycle. The firm boasts a world-leading track record in guiding landmark first-in-sector IPOs across global markets, alongside unrivaled reach and in-depth coverage capabilities across specialized niche market segments.
CIC helps enterprises refine scalable business models and craft compelling capital narratives to enable seamless access to global capital markets, while serving as a trusted due diligence partner to investment institutions. It delivers granular industry insights and direct access to subject matter experts, empowering clients to identify high-value opportunities and mitigate critical risks effectively.
With deep expertise in beauty and personal care, advanced materials and related sectors, CIC has supported leading industry players in successful listings worldwide, including Runben Co., Ltd. (603193. SH), Forest Cabin (02657. HK), Cheerwin Group (06601. HK) and Yatsen Holding Limited (YSG. US).
About PCT 2026 Personal Care Technology Summit
Hosted by Ringier Industrial Media, the PCT Personal Care Technology Summit is one of the most influential industry events in the Asia-Pacific personal care sector. Under the theme Tech-Empowered Beauty, Innovation-Led Growth, the 2026 edition focuses on cutting-edge industry topics including AI-powered smart skincare, synthetic biological raw materials, sustainable beauty, scalp health care, efficacy skincare innovation and global compliance risk management.
The summit featured more than 10 thematic forums, over 100 professional technical sharing sessions, and exhibitions from over 165 industry enterprises, showcasing full-chain solutions spanning raw material R&D, formulation optimization, intelligent manufacturing, testing & certification and supporting technical services. Bringing together top experts, academic researchers and industry executives from the global personal care sector, the event serves as a benchmark platform for industry exchange, resource matching and trend insight, accelerating the application of frontier technologies, innovative raw materials and high-quality solutions.
Media Contact
marketing@cninsights.com
