The sales volume decreased by 10.5% year-on-year. After four years of rapid growth, the high-speed hair dryer market has slowed down, and price wars are no longer effective.
When you search for "hair dryers" on e-commerce platforms, the recommended products at the top of the search results are almost all "high-speed hair dryers" from various brands. Traditional hair dryers seem to have faded from people's view.
(Image source: Taobao)
A report released by Aowei Cloud Network shows that in the first half of 2025, high-speed hair dryers accounted for about 70% of the hair dryer market and have become the mainstream. The rapid development of high-speed hair dryers is closely related to price wars. In 2021, Laifen launched its first high-speed hair dryer, the LF01, with a price of 599 yuan. Compared with Dyson's Supersonic hair dryer, it was 2391 yuan cheaper.
(Image source: Dyson official website)
Subsequently, manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Feike, Dreame, Haier, and Gree actively entered the market, and the price of high-speed hair dryers continued to decline. During this year's big promotion, the price of a high-speed hair dryer even dropped below 100 yuan. It seems that relying solely on the low-price strategy is no longer feasible.
More importantly, the overall performance of the hair dryer market did not maintain the momentum of previous years. In the first half of this year, the scale of this category decreased by 10.5% year-on-year. When price wars can no longer be the key to victory, how can high-speed hair dryer manufacturers continue to grow?
What a hair dryer needs is not just high speed
From Laifen, Dreame, Sues to Zhibai and Xiaomi Mi Home, almost all brands can produce high-speed hair dryers with 110,000 RPM motors. The differences between products of different brands are getting smaller and smaller, and "high speed" has changed from a "technological miracle" to an "industry standard".
In the past, the high temperature and high wind speed of traditional hair dryers did bring very high hair-drying efficiency, but the problems were also obvious: It dries fast but blows poorly. High temperature makes hair extremely frizzy. For some users, even after drying their hair, they need to add additional hair care steps to reduce the continuous damage caused by high temperature. Therefore, temperature control has become the next research topic for high-speed hair dryers.
Take Laifen's Swift SE as an example. Its built-in "Thermo Control" technology can alternate hot and cold air and detect the air temperature in real time, keeping it at around 50 degrees Celsius to achieve a hair-drying effect that is hot but not scalding. Compared with the self-setting gear design of traditional hair dryers, algorithm-based temperature control is more accurate. Dreame's G10 introduces NTC intelligent temperature control and AI temperature feedback, which can automatically adjust the air outlet parameters according to the environmental humidity and hair temperature.
(Image source: Laifen official website)
Of course, temperature control is just a very basic topic for today's high-speed hair dryers. Considering the increasing demand of modern consumers for hair care, most brands have also begun to research adding hair care steps while drying hair. For example, Sues uses a "dual-ion channel design" to release positive and negative ions simultaneously during the hair-drying process to neutralize static electricity; Panasonic's "nanoe water ion" technology generates charged particles through electrolyzed water to improve the hair cuticle; and Xiaomi Mi Home's latest high-speed hair dryer introduces a "high-concentration blue ion" system, combined with cold air at the end to achieve water-locking and hair care.
In addition to technological progress in functions, structural design and weight optimization are also topics for high-speed hair dryers. High-speed motors often mean high noise and high vibration. Finding a balance between "performance" and "quietness" is also a breakthrough that most brands are currently pursuing.
For example, Dreame uses a spiral air duct and a double-layer soundproof structure to reduce the noise to 58dB; Braun uses a built-in soundproof cavity to control resonance; Sues and Laifen reduce the vibration feeling through the central motor and suspension structure.
The body of Zhibai's HL9 series is controlled at about 345g, and Dreame's Pocket P10 even weighs only 300g. These lightweight high-speed hair dryers have also helped them break into more usage scenarios such as travel and outings from home use.
(Image source: Dreame official website)
In short, the biggest selling point of early high-speed hair dryers was the motor. The strong wind and ultra-high hair-drying efficiency won the favor of consumers, and the price less than 1/5 of Dyson's was the core reason for the rapid rise of this category. However, low price and high speed cannot support the long-term development of high-speed hair dryers. Only by making significant breakthroughs in functionality, intelligence, and styling design compared with traditional hair dryers can they maintain a high market share.
A hair dryer may not satisfy everyone's "taste"
Judging from market feedback, the main reason why high-speed hair dryers are involved in endless price wars is the serious product homogenization. Currently, selling points such as 110,000 RPM, high-concentration negative ions, and intelligent temperature control basically cover high-speed hair dryer products in the 100-yuan price range. For ordinary consumers, since the functions and selling points are similar, they naturally prefer products with lower prices.
To get out of the price war, leading brands have begun to try to segment the market. Just like in the mobile phone market, there are imaging phones and gaming phones; in the PC market, there are ultra-thin laptops and gaming laptops. Although their cores are not very different, making clever differentiations is the key to keeping the entire market relatively balanced.
Dreame was the first to launch a portable and foldable high-speed hair dryer. In 2024, Dreame released the Pocket high-speed hair dryer. After folding, the whole machine is only the size of a mobile phone and weighs only 300g. The P10 Ultra released this year was a hot seller as soon as it went on sale. Data shows that the year-on-year sales growth of Dreame hair dryers on the two major platforms of Tmall and JD.com was 29% and 26% respectively.
Dreame is not the only one to get out of the low-price model. Laifen, Zhibai, and Xiaomi Mi Home have begun to focus on the male market and added a one-key quick-drying mode to their new products, making special designs for short-haired users. The Japanese brand Panasonic has added a scalp care mode to its high-end product line, directly targeting the oil and scalp health problems of male users.
(Image source: Xiaomi official website)
In addition to targeting male users, Dyson, Panasonic, and Sues have begun to embed a hair quality detection and red light repair module in the body to design targeted solutions for users with permed or dyed hair. It is not difficult to see that high-speed hair dryers entered the market with the feature of "high speed". The underlying logic is actually to move from traditional, manual hair dryers to intelligent and personalized hair dryers.
Products that only focus on low price and high speed will find it difficult to keep up with the actual needs of consumers and will eventually be abandoned in the torrent of the times.
Digging out new needs can create new growth points
In the past four years, the growth myth of domestic high-speed hair dryers has almost become synonymous with the "affordable miracle". Laifen, Dreame, and Zhibai set off a wave of popularization with high speed and low price, making it a reality that "everyone can have a high-speed hair dryer".
However, when the market tends to be saturated, the performance is homogeneous, and the price hits the bottom, brands have begun to find an embarrassing fact: Lowering the price further will not bring new growth.
The key to getting out of this endless price war is not to launch products at lower prices, but to reconstruct demand. Users have already been educated that "high speed is better". The next thing they need to be educated about is that "high speed can understand me better". This means that brands may need to focus on intelligence.
(Image source: Xiaomi official website)
On the other hand, creating products for segmented markets will become the second growth curve of the industry. Portable and travel models have opened up the lightweight market, male quick-drying models have targeted new customer groups, and professional salon-grade products and household intelligent hair dryers have the opportunity to become the next round of essential appliances. Under the combined effect of these directions, the penetration rate of high-speed hair dryers is far from reaching the ceiling.
The end of price wars is not involution, but redefining value. Whoever can find new reasons for consumption beyond speed can make the industry return to growth.
Perhaps in the near future, high-speed hair dryers will no longer be just a category of household appliances, but a re-imagination of personal care and lifestyle. When AI, sensors, and the smart home ecosystem are gradually integrated, hair dryers may become the entrance to the "personal care center", just like smart watches for health and sweeping robots for housework.
The next stage of high-speed hair dryers is no longer "comparing who is cheaper", but "comparing who can create more needs". The real winner is not the one that engages in the most intense involution, but the one that can make consumers pay again.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Leikeji", author: Leikeji. Republished by 36Kr with permission.