Sweden’s self-care market grew 3.6% in 2018 to be worth over SEK 5 billion, according to new data compiled by the trade Swedish body Svensk Egenvård and Euromonitor International.
The survey looked at sales of four main product categories – dietary supplements, vitamins, weight-loss products, herbal medicines and sports nutrition – across all the sales channels, including pharmacy, grocery, health stores, professional, mail order and online.
Category share
Vitamins/dietary supplements take the biggest share of Sweden’s self-care market at 56.2%, followed by sports nutrition (29.5%), weight loss (14%) and herbal medicine (5.4%).
Growth by category
The strongest category growth in 2018 came from sports nutrition at 5.7%. Vitamins/dietary supplements and herbal medicine achieved 3.6% and 3.2% respectively, while wight control went into negative growth at -2.1%.
Sales channel share
The survey shows that the three largest sales channels in the Swedish self-self-care market are multiple retail (24.4%), pharmacy (22.4%) and health food stores (20.1%). Online sales now command an impressive 16.4%, with direct mail accounting for 10.9%.
5 biggest dietary supplement brands
The survey looks at biggest brands and brand-owners in each of the four categories studied. In the dietary supplement category, VitaePro from Vitaelab is the leading branded product at 7.0%, followed by Midsona’s Probi products (4.7%) and Orkla Care’s Gerimax (3.8%).
Wider Nordic comparisons
Setting the survey findings into a wider context, Svensk Egenvård point out that Swedish and Danish average consumers spend considerably less money on dietary supplements and vitamins than consumers in Norway and Finland. In Finland consumers spend EUR 57.4 on average annually on supplements, while Norwegians spend EUR 53.89. By comparison, Swedish consumers spend EUR28.13 and Danish consumers spend EUR 27.1.