Medical surgical masks have been in short supply for most of this year. Starting in February, prices briefly surged to around ¥10 per piece. Local regulators in many places stepped in, and retail prices were eventually capped at roughly ¥4 each. But capping the listed price did not really solve the problem. Sellers simply found other ways to raise the effective price.
One common workaround was bundling. Individually sold surgical masks were often rationed or perpetually out of stock, while package deals that included other protective items remained readily available. A bundle containing 10 price-capped surgical masks and a bottle of hand sanitizer gel could easily sell for more than ¥100, even though a similar sanitizer on its own might cost only a little over ¥20.
The logic behind this was straightforward: surgical masks were scarce and therefore carried a strong premium, while the sanitizer was mainly there to get around price controls. The same pattern showed up in informal social networks as well, where masks were widely resold in small quantities for around ¥10 each. That kind of fragmented, person-to-person trading reflected the same market impulse: when a product is scarce, people will keep searching for ways to capture a higher price.
A price ceiling on its own has limited effect if the form of transaction is left unrestricted. The market will usually find a path to restore the premium. If both prices and transaction methods are tightly controlled, that starts to resemble full planning and allocation rather than market coordination. In a market economy, imposing that kind of comprehensive control over a specific good is hard to achieve even in the short run, and it can create room for rent-seeking while further weakening supply.
What changed the situation more meaningfully was not regulation, but supply. After April, price controls on medical surgical masks were gradually relaxed in many places, and production capacity expanded quickly. By late April, output had risen to more than ten times the level seen in the same period a year earlier. That surge in manufacturing greatly improved supply. At the same time, however, outbreaks overseas intensified from March onward, and international demand for surgical masks climbed sharply. As a result, mask prices in April and May stayed near ¥3 per piece.
By June, prices had started to fall toward ¥2. During the mid-June online shopping promotions, prices dropped even further, and by the end of the month they had moved down again. That trend suggested two things at once: supply was becoming more stable, and demand was starting to cool.
On June 15, during a major e-commerce promotion, I bought 120 surgical masks at an average unit price of ¥1.6. The listing promised price protection during the promotion period, but by June 18 the effective price had already fallen to about ¥1.3 each. I did not receive the price adjustment because I had used a store coupon. That is a side note, but it is also a reminder not to place too much trust in promotional mechanics.
Then on June 27, I checked prices again and found that buying 100 masks would bring the unit cost down to just ¥1. I ordered a 20-pack to compare it with the masks bought during the earlier sale, and one detail stood out.
The production date was April 16, 2020. That means 71 days had passed by the time I bought it. The masks I bought during the June promotion, from the same brand, had a very similar production date.
This points to two interesting conclusions. First, medical surgical masks were no longer moving quickly. Under tighter conditions, roughly 10 days from production to the consumer would have been enough. If products made in mid-April were still reaching buyers in late June, then there was likely around 60 days of accumulated inventory sitting somewhere in the supply chain. Second, as supply and demand moved closer to normal—or even tipped toward oversupply—prices were likely to fall further. Based on that, I expected medical surgical masks to reach a low of around ¥0.7 per piece in July or August.
Why expect prices to keep falling?
Several factors support that view:
- Domestic outbreaks were easing, which meant demand for medical surgical masks was gradually declining.
- Japan, South Korea, and a number of European countries were also bringing outbreaks under better control, reducing demand there as well.
- Hotter weather made masks more uncomfortable to wear, so in places without strict requirements, many people simply stopped wearing them regularly.
- Large compliant manufacturers still had investment and depreciation to absorb, so it was unlikely they would cut prices below a normal floor in the short term—roughly below ¥0.5 per piece.
- Raw materials such as meltblown fabric were still expensive in April and May, so existing inventory had a relatively high cost base. Even though those costs are effectively sunk, prices were unlikely to immediately drop below the average cost of stock produced during that period.
- Serious outbreaks were still underway in countries such as the United States, Brazil, and India, which meant global demand had not disappeared. Producers were not yet under pressure to dump inventory at a loss just to survive.
Why did prices stay around ¥3 in April and May?
That earlier price level can be explained by three overlapping forces:
- Demand was strong because of the pandemic.
- Inputs such as meltblown fabric remained expensive.
- Consumers had adjusted to unusually high prices after the severe mismatch between supply and demand in February and March, so their expectations had also shifted upward.
What might happen in autumn and winter?
The pandemic was clearly not going to disappear by autumn and winter, and the earliest large-scale vaccine rollout was still expected only in the following spring. On that basis, full control of the outbreak would not likely come until the next summer at the earliest. Once temperatures fall, transmission risk tends to rise, and people’s resistance may weaken with seasonal changes. That makes a deterioration after October fairly plausible, which would push mask demand back up.
My expectation was that after October, the price of medical surgical masks could return to around ¥2 per piece, though probably not much higher. There are a few reasons for that.
First, countries around the world were becoming more experienced in controlling outbreaks, which reduced the chance of extremely large-scale transmission. Second, some places were shifting toward more targeted control measures—smaller in scope and faster in execution—rather than broad, prolonged restrictions that would trigger a nationwide scramble for masks. Third, once production capacity has expanded, it does not shrink overnight, so supply should remain relatively ample. That means any price increase would more likely come from raw material costs and a moderate restoration of profit margins, not from the kind of distorted spike caused by acute shortages. Fourth, households and even governments might use July and August to build up reserves, which would make any later increase in demand more gradual and less disruptive.
These price judgments are based on direct buying experience and basic market observation rather than comprehensive statistical tracking, so they should be understood as a practical reading of the market rather than a formal forecast.