Patrick Wong On 20 Years In The Wet Wipes Business, Managing Margins, and Aspirations Ahead

While we often pay attention to the hot and sexy tech startups of the world or the big established name brands and their shelves of products that we use on a daily basis, it’s important to remember that there are plenty of lucrative businesses out there that we’ve never heard of. – Consumers might know Durex, but how many know that homegrown Karex is the biggest condom manufacturer in the world?

Malaysia has many of these kinds of businesses, big and small, and one of them is our guest today – People & Global, an Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM of wet wipes, a product category that garnered a lot of attention in the last few years as hygiene and sanitisation became key during the pandemic.

By some estimates, the wet wipes business was a 4 billion US dollar market in 2022. That’s a sizable market for a narrow product that we take for granted on a regular basis, and it’s expected to continue to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of 7.8% up to 2033.

Founded in 2003, this OEM caters to both local and international markets, they produce a diverse range of hygiene products such as wet wipes and sanitary napkins to prominent clients like Watson's, Shell, Mydin, Petronas, and more.

On this episode of Open for Business, you will learn why today’s guest Patrick Wong, Founder and Managing Director, People & Global entered this business of all things, the intricate workings of this 20 year old homegrown wet wipes OEM, how profitable wet wipes manufacturing can be, and whether People & Global can be more than just an OEM through its own brand Wetty.