Text: Historical Records of Landscapes
Edited |
When it comes to home appliances, household names such as Gree, Midea and Supor often come to mind.
These brands are popular not only because of their wide range of products and high quality, but also because they are the pride of China's local "domestic products".
However, Supor was sold to a foreign company by its founders when it was gaining momentum, and the brand image and reputation have since declined.
Supor's success story started with a pressure cooker. Today, pressure cookers are a common item in home kitchens, but in the mid-20th century, the Chinese pressure cooker market was almost blank.
Before Supor entered the electrical appliance market, Shenyang Double Happiness has always been a pioneer and market leader in the field of pressure cookers in China. It wasn't until 1994 that this situation was broken with the birth of the Supor, which reinvigorated the pressure cooker market.
Su Zengfu, the founder of Supor, was born in a poor farming family and is a real grassroots background.
He served in the Navy for eight years, and after leaving the army, he joined an agricultural machinery factory as a salesman, and with his work experience in agricultural machinery factories, he gradually rose to the position of factory director, and established a cooperative relationship with Double Happiness to start producing pressure cooker accessories.
Su Zengfu is very forward-looking to realize that only independent research and development and production of pressure cookers can grasp the dominance of the market, so he made a strategic decision to produce pressure cookers.
Despite the risks and opposition, he stuck to his decision and successfully launched a new type of pressure cooker, quickly taking over the market and surpassing Double Happiness to become an industry leader.
Su Zengfu continued to innovate and invest in research and development, making Supor a household name, and established a cookware company at the beginning of this century to further expand its business scope.
In this way, Supor slowly became the first publicly listed cookware manufacturer in China, which also made Su Zengfu's personal wealth grow significantly.
At the age of 60, Su Zengfu sold more than half of Supor's shares to a French cookware group, a decision that shocked the outside world.
Despite Supor's remarkable achievements, Su Zengfu chose to sell, not out of retirement cash-out considerations, but out of pessimistic expectations about the future competitiveness of the cookware industry and the recognition of the greater potential of the international market.
Su Zengfu believes that the company has its life cycle, and the peak of Supor has passed, and it is unknown whether it can continue to be brilliant in the future, so he hopes to turn to a more promising industry through the sale.
Su Zengfu's views undoubtedly provide some inspiration for young entrepreneurs, but it does not mean that his views are absolutely correct.
Su Zengfu's decision to sell Supor has caused widespread discussion in society. A high-profile and fast-growing local brand suddenly changed hands to become a foreign-owned holding, much to the disappointment and anger of many consumers who supported domestic products.
As a national entrepreneur, Su Zengfu's business decisions not only require business wisdom, but also social responsibility. His decision to sell Supor has sparked much discussion, but he believes it would be better for him to hand over the company to an experienced French company.
Supor's market value rose after the change of ownership, and many people sighed that Su Zengfu suffered a big loss.
Although the controlling stake in Supor has been transferred to foreign investors, the quality and variety of products it offers has not changed, and many consumers are unaware of the fact that they still support Supor.
The improvement of the quality of life has made everyone's demand for electrical appliances higher and higher: on the one hand, it needs to meet the needs of consumers more and more comprehensively, and on the other hand, it also requires merchants to spend some attention on appearance.
As a veteran company, Supor has failed to adapt to the trend of e-commerce and online consumption in a timely manner, while other companies such as Midea and Xiaoxiong Electric have gained market favor through new forms such as live broadcasting.
Supor failed to transform in time, but instead increased the promotion of old products, resulting in rising marketing costs and limited results. This is tantamount to squandering marketing expenses, and the result is that Supor is spending more and more, but the situation has not improved much.
If Supor is still in Su Zengfu's hands, he may not face such an embarrassing scene, and Su Zengfu will use as many resources as possible in his hands to support research and development.
In reality, it is obvious from the financial statements disclosed by Supor that its R&D expenses are getting smaller and smaller. Innovation is the core competitiveness of the manufacturing industry, stagnation will be eliminated by the times, Supor needs to face its own development problems.
Despite this, Supor's reputation accumulated over the years still maintains consumer trust to a certain extent. Since 2020, Supor has suffered a number of crises caused by quality problems.
Consumers reported on the complaint platform that Supor's non-stick pan series was not as durable as advertised, and the coating quickly peeled off.
In addition, there were serious problems with Supor's electrical products, such as water heater explosions, kettle leaks, and rice cooker leaks, which seriously damaged consumer trust in the brand.
As a domestic brand that was once trusted by consumers, these quality problems of Supor have led to a sharp decline in its reputation. In the current home appliance market, Supor gradually lost market share and was replaced by emerging brands such as Midea, Gree, and Joyoung.
Data shows that since 2020, Supor's market value has shrunk by nearly 30 billion. If Supor does not adjust and transform, its prospects will be very worrying.
This incident also shows that in order for national enterprises to continue to succeed, they need not only the support of the state, but also the national sentiment of consumers.
Supor used the name of domestic products to mislead consumers for many years, and finally lost the trust of consumers because of quality problems, which is a profound lesson for Supor.
After the Huaxizi domestic product incident in 2023, many domestic brands have once again attracted the public's attention by using the platform of live broadcast.
Old brands such as Totole, Double Panda, Double Happiness, Daqianmen, etc., which were once in the childhood memories of the post-90s, post-80s and even post-70s, have been revitalized again and set off a wave of domestic products.
Looking at the success of these companies, we can see that they not only maintain control of the company's equity, but also actively assume social responsibility.
It is this sense of responsibility that enables these companies to gain a long-term foothold in the market. Chinese consumers have given enthusiastic support and positive feedback to domestic brands that are genuinely concerned about consumer needs.
Through actual buying behavior, they show that only those businesses that truly care about consumers can win the sincere support and rewards of consumers.
Information sources:
"Supor's product quality problems are frequent, and last year's cash flow fell by 35.60% year-on-year" - Sina Finance released on April 19, 2024