Smart-toilet market will be a measure of China’s economic resilience

IT IS not often that Goldman Sachs refers to the capricious, cleanliness-obsessed Japanese kawayakami toilet gods in its equity research. It is rarer still that it cites the propitiation of these deities while making the investment case for a Chinese bathroom fittings company. 

But when it comes to pitching Shenzhen-listed stocks to nervous, anywhere-but-China global investors, these are undeniably tough times: tough enough, clearly, to justify the construction of an elaborate chart comparing “toilet culture and key penetration drivers in China vs Japan and US”.

For proponents of the idea that various parts of the world are ripe for various types of Japanification, this is appealing stuff. The short version of the note is that Goldman believes smart toilets – the sort of seat-heating, rear-washing, fundament-drying marvels pioneered in Japan as a supposed extension of its kawayakami worship – are poised for embrace by a toilet-friendly Chinese culture. Toilets, the note asserts, are viewed in China as a “safe and comfortable space for me-time”.