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Hengan makes and sells everyday paper and hygiene products — tissues, sanitary pads, and baby diapers — mostly to families in China.
Hengan International is one of China's biggest makers of the small, cheap household items people buy without thinking much about: soft tissue, toilet paper, sanitary pads, and baby diapers. Walk into a Chinese supermarket and you'll likely find its brands — Xinshuxiang for paper, Qicha for tissues, Anerle for diapers, and Space 7 for sanitary pads — lining the shelves. It sells the same kinds of products overseas too, but China is the heart of the business.
The money works like a simple consumer staples machine: make huge volumes of inexpensive items in big factories, sell them to supermarkets and distributors, and rely on repeat purchases from households. Margins on a pack of tissues are thin, but people buy them every week. That steady demand makes Hengan a defensive, cash-generating business — one reason it's a longtime favorite of income-focused investors, known for paying dividends. It competes with domestic giants like Vinda International and a crowded field of regional paper makers, plus global hygiene names such as Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark in pads and diapers. The business has had a rough stretch. Rising wood pulp prices — the main raw material for tissue paper — squeeze profits, and China's slower economy has made shoppers pickier about price. In response, Hengan has pushed into higher-margin products like premium tissues and adult-care items as China's population ages. It's a sensible bet: everyone uses the bathroom and buys tissues, but whoever makes them cheapest, and mixes in pricier products, wins.
One of the more interesting things about Hengan is that it is a genuine Chinese consumer brand that grew from a small textile-weaving outfit in Fujian province into a national name. Its founder, Sze Man Bok, started it in the 1980s making fabric, then pivoted into sanitary pads and tissues as China's middle class began spending. The lesson from Hengan is that boring products — tissues and pads — can build a durable, dividend-paying giant, as long as you can keep costs low and buy shelf space across a billion households.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026