Name: Bic CEO on How the Rise of Body Hair Shaving Has Boosted the Razor Industry
Uploaded: 2025-05-09T16:40:00Z
Duration: 4 min 5 s
Description: Gonzalve Bich, CEO of BIC, discussed trends in shaving technology and how those have affected the business.

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Gonzalve Bich, CEO of BIC, discussed trends in shaving technology and how those have affected the business.

https://m.wsj.net/video/20250509/d08f793f-c0d6-42c0-bb08-2eb14ae60d18/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Bic CEO on How the Rise of Body Hair Shaving Has Boosted the Razor Industry

All right, let's go to the last of the big three, 'cause I know you have some other products, which is, you call them razors or shavers?

Both. Whichever you like.

Okay. And so is that different around the world as well? Or how does that work?

It's different. So it's the same quality blade, it's the same quality product, and that's true of all three of our businesses. We don't differentiate the quality of the product depending on where we're selling it in the world. We believe all consumers should have the same quality. Here in the U.S., yes, we're gonna sell more five blade products or the very high end of the range, and in other parts of the world, we're gonna be selling more accessible products, same quality. The shaving rituals are different. So I remember doing a UNA study a few years ago. We were in South Africa and one of the guys was telling us, "Yes, I shave once a week, and I use the mirror on my motorbike to see myself and I have a bucket of water next to the side of the road to shave." That's very different from a usage that you might have shaved in this morning, or I did. But really, the growth of the shave business also is on having an offer for the widest possible. So 35 years ago, we started making shavers for ladies, specific to that, and then 20 years ago, we created a product that's number one here in the U.S., called Soleil, Bic Soleil. We actually outsell Venus in units, and that's really been an incredible success through its colors, its ergonomy, but also the benefit from a pure shaving perspective that it offers the consumer.

I mean, are people growing beards more? You have a beard. So I mean, is beard trending, and that's bad for the business?

So if you took a hundred years of history, facial hair goes up and down cyclically, almost-

See, I knew you would know that, the cyclicality of beards over time.

Yeah, Blackbeard, the pirate, and I... But even Blackbeard had to trim his beard, and so you use quite a bit of product. In today's world, what's added to that is body shaving. So about 10 years ago, we started to see the rise of body shaving. Today, in the U.S., Western Europe, one in three men shave their body completely.

Okay, that's a lot of information.

That's a lot of units.

Well that's a lot of units. It's also a lot of information, but go ahead.

It is.

Okay.

But if we walked down the halls around here and we started asking, and you got people to answer honestly, you would have that.

Right, and what sort of percent market share do you have in the U.S.? Do you have Gillette, which is owned by P&G, right?

Correct.

Andy Serwer: And then is Schick still around?

It's Edgewell.

Edgewell.

Yes.

Okay.

It's another publicly traded company.

Got it, okay, and so what share do you have, would you say?

Around 22 to 26, depending on just men, men and women, just women, which part of the business, but we're about a quarter of the business here in the U.S. That's up almost 10 points over a decade, and so we've been growing through innovation, distribution. Really the consumer has seen the benefit, both on an everyday basis, and also the affordable quality of our products, compared to those competitors that you mentioned a second ago.

Yeah I mean, you have a lower price point than certainly Gillette. I know that, right?

Yes.

And that's served you, I mean is that tied to the economy as well? It must be, right?

No, it's the positioning that we've had ever, I mean-

No, but I mean, would you benefit more in a weaker economy?

Oh, you absolutely benefit, as long as you're providing the value. Just having cheap and cheerful products doesn't work as a strategy over 80 years. No one's built an 80 year business that way. So you have to have the fundamental underlying quality. Now, if you came to our largest R and D facility and you sat there with the electron microscopes, looking at 50,000 magnification at the blade edge, where all the technology is, it's called the Ultimate Blade Tip, that's where really all the value is created for the consumer, in addition to the ergonomy that's really made our female range so popular and successful.

Bic CEO on How the Rise of Body Hair Shaving Has Boosted the Razor Industry

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