Japan's Unique Bidet Gets Solid Demand In U.S., China

Japan's unique bidet and bottom-cleaning toilet seats have long mostly been confined to their home archipelago, after failing to make a splash overseas. However, these days sales of Toto Ltd.'s "Washlet" toilet seats are warming up in the United States and China. So why has the tide turned?

Photo Insert: "Washlet," the Toto trademark has begun to see a steady flow of demand from abroad.

"Washlet" is a Toto trademark, and the generic name for the machines -- including competitor Lixil Corp.'s "Shower Toilets" -- is "warm-water bidet toilet seat." According to the Cabinet Office's Consumer Confidence Survey, the seats have gone from a market penetration of about 14% in 1992 to 80.2% in 2020.

They are now indispensable to Japan's bottoms, Yoshihiro Takahashi reported for Mainichi Japan.

Meanwhile, Japanese manufacturers have had less success overseas, even in the United States and China -- Toto's major target markets -- where penetration rates hover around 10% and 5%, respectively.

The seat was originally a medical device made in the US for people with hemorrhoids. But something unusual has occurred in the US market.

Last fiscal year's sales volume increased by 80% over the previous year, and Toto President Noriaki Kiyota feels that Washlets have "finally reached the beginning of popularity."

One of the reasons behind the rapid sales increase is the serious shortage of paper caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the US, lockdowns and other measures in spring 2020 severely restricted people from going out, and there was a widespread rush to buy up daily necessities.

Toilet paper was in short supply in many places. This is where the Washlet began to shine, and people began to say, "It saves paper and it's hygienic."

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