Condom sales soar 23.4% as relaxed social restrictions increase sexual activity

Male condom sales in the United States increased 23.4 percent to $37 million during the four weeks ending April 18 from the same period last year.

The figure still represents a 4.4 percent drop in all of 2020.

The condom maker attributed recent growth to relaxed social distancing rules, with CEO Laxman Narasimhan revealing that they saw improved sales in markets where social restrictions are being eased.

Condom sales plummeted during the pandemic as people stayed at home. But as more are getting vaccinated and Covid-19 safety restrictions are loosening, condom sales went up.

Durex sales still grew last year, despite a challenging first half of 2020 and flat sales in 2019.

Britta Bomhard, chief marketing officer of Church & Dwight (CHD), the maker of Trojan condoms, noted that 18-to 24-year-olds can't wait to get their social lives back.

Condoms sales, says CHD CEO Matt Farrell, are expected to grow on-year as society opens up and consumers become more mobile.

Even before the pandemic, condom sales dropped 2.4 percent in 2017 and 3.4 percent in 2018 before climbing 1.2 percent in 2019.

Kevin Grundy, a consumer goods analyst at Jefferies, attributed condoms' lower market share in recent years to competition posed by other forms of contraception, including women's morning-after pill.

Researchers from Indiana University and Sweden's Karolinska Institutet attributed young Americans having less sex to a variety of factors, including delayed adulthood and the rise of technology and social media.

Men who were unemployed, had part-time employment or lower incomes were more likely to be sexually inactive, researchers found.