An Overview of the Contraceptive Sector

The contraceptive market consists of all products used for birth control or as prophylaxis in sexual relationships and includes the following forms: oral, chemical, barrier and hormonal.

Currently, about 63.1% of the women’s population is using contraceptives. Developed countries have a higher percentage of 67.4% in terms of contraceptive prevalence and as expected, developing countries have a low prevalence of 62.4%.[2]

The market is continuing to grow because of the increasing preference among fertile women to be sexually active but not get pregnant and increasing advocacy among international organizations, specifically the United Nations (UN) to educate women on how to prevent unintended pregnancy. Unintended pregnancy often leads to rapid population growth that is associated with higher poverty levels, lower levels of primary education and higher child and maternal mortality.

This high population growth is considered a barrier to accomplishing the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.[3]  Funds for contraceptives may increase to address the problem of high fertility and unintended pregnancy and this will increase demand for contraceptives, in particular in developing countries.[4]

Noord-Amerika

• 68.6% of the 40.20 million females
• About 1.21 million females in North America are using vaginal barrier contraceptives such as diaphragm, sponge and vaginal condoms.[6]
• The Guttmacher Institute reports that there are 38.11 million female contraceptive users in USA, 0.3% of which or 0.11 million are using diaphragm.[7]

Latijns-Amerika

• 64% of the 88.44 million female population use contraceptives
• 56.6 million females are constant consumers of contraceptives
• About 2.65 million are using vaginal barrier contraceptives such as diaphragm, sponge and vaginal condoms[8]

Azië

• 61.7% of the 750.67 million female Asians are using contraceptives
• 3 million women are using vaginal barrier methods such as diaphragm

Europa

• 52.5% of the 96.76 million female populations are using contraceptives
• 0.58 million using vaginal barrier methods

Afrika

• 21.4% of the 148.11 million female populations are using contraceptives
• 0.74 million women are using vaginal barrier methods of contraception[9]

Source:

• [1] http://www.isria.info
• [2] http://www.isria.info
• [3] UN World Contraceptive Use 2007
• [4]