What is wrong with the disposable medical gloves market?

In these times of COVID-19 pandemic, to say that the disposable medical gloves market is volatile is no less than a euphemism. More than the prices themselves, the market is also flooded with counterfeit products of unequal quality. Even at the port of loading, production can be stolen or exchanged for second grade or QC rejected gloves.

At HASHI Healthcare, we implement rigorous procedures to ensure that our products are genuine and that our prices are fair and reflect the reality of the market. In this article, we aim to raise awareness about the main market drivers, players and provide you with the keys to understand why the demand for disposable medical gloves is skyrocketing.

Understanding the demand for gloves

Understanding the demand for nitrile gloves is pretty obvious in times of pandemic. To protect yourself against the COVID-19 virus, the CDC recommends to wear masks and to practice social distancing. Gloves are to be used when caring for patients and medical procedures. A new pair of gloves should be used for each patient.

In hospital settings, we can reasonably assume that 100 gloves are used per day and patient. In the United-States, the overall hospitalization rate for COVID patients is close to 10%. As of July 5th, 1,500,000 cases are diagnosed in the United-Sates, which means that at least 150,000 patients are or have been hospitalized.

How many gloves are needed daily? Let’s do the math, and we found a staggering 15 million gloves per day. This is 5 billion gloves needed per year….only for hospitals….only for COVID patients….and only in the United-States!

The surge in demand drives the growth of this market and is responsible for the rise in price. On top of that, nitrile gloves are now considered a commodity, and traders usually dealing with oil or food are now driving the demand. Top Gloves, one of the main players on this market, has seen his share price multiplied by three in less than two months.

An outlook of the gloves market

According to Global news wire, the disposable glove segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 14% during the period 2019-2025. By 2025, this should represent US$ 16.50 billion. The real bottleneck is that disposable gloves and especially nitrile ones are a very specialized product.

The major market players are mostly based in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. The reason for that is obvious. Gloves, at least the latex ones, are mostly made of natural rubber, and South Asian countries are the main producers of rubber.

How we proceed to ensure top quality, fair prices and smooth supply

At HASHI Healthcare, we know that the key to smooth supply is diversification. That why we do not only work with the leading players such as Top Glove Corporation Bhd in Malaysia and V Gloves in Vietnam. We also work with smaller companies. By aggregating our suppliers, we are in the unique position of being able to provide up to 100 million boxes per week.

To ensure a smooth supply, we take care of the logistics and provide all of our gloves on a CIF basis only. In Europe, we also offer DDP.

We aim at establishing long term partnerships. Our prices change depending on the market, but we pride ourselves on offering fair prices. We accept 100% LC at sight or Escrow following SGS inspection.

We follow a strict buying process to reassure all parties involved

One of the main issues of any High Demand and Limited Supply market is linked to price fishing.

We follow a strict protocol will it be on the buyer or seller side. This way, all of the parties involved work in full confidence.

BUYER provides a Letter of Intent (LOI)
HASHI HEALTHCARE provides a Soft Corporate Offer (SCO)
BUYER provides a Proof of Funds (POF)
HASHI HEALTHCARE provides a SALES PURCHASE AGREEMENT and IRREVOCABLE CORPORATE PURCHASE ORDER
Once agreed, our attorney will provide all of the certificates and Proof of Life on video.
Buyer/Seller/Escrow agent sign triparty agreements and set up the escrow or LC
SGS inspection as per agreed on SPA
AWB or BOL provided to Buyer
BUYER verify the SGS inspection report, Bill of Lading (BoL) or Airway Bill (AWB)
RELEASE of the ESCROW or LC