Article Source: Reference News Network

Reference News Network reported on August 18 that Korean media said that Fuku Electronics and Cool Chen Electronics, the top two in the Korean rice cooker market, declined in performance in the first half of this year. Affected by the “Saad” issue, sales of the two companies' main products declined sharply. Coupled with increased market competition, increased marketing expenses and reduced profits, the overall situation was not optimistic.

According to a report by South Korea's “Asian Economy” on August 17, the Korea Financial Supervisory Authority reported on August 16 that Fuku Electronics' sales for the first half of this year were 356.6 billion won and operating profit was 42.5 billion won, down 0.4% and 14.6% respectively from the same period last year. Net profit for the period was 32.8 billion won, a decrease of 22.4%.

According to the analysis, this is mainly due to poor sales of rice cookers, the main product of Fuku Electronics. In the second quarter of this year, due to the “Saad” issue, sales of Fuku rice cookers were also suspended on local TV shopping in China. Exports to China fell 57.4% year on year during the same season.

According to South Korea's “Asian Economy” report, Kuchen Electronics' situation is even worse. Sales for the first half of this year were 117.9 billion won, down 11.5% from the same period last year, with an operating deficit of 5.1 billion won and a net loss of 4.8 billion won in the current period.

The report said that the main reason is also the decline in sales of electric cookers. In particular, the impact of slow sales of middle and high-end products with relatively high profits is severe. The sales volume of the high-end IH rice cooker in the first half of the year was 56.6 billion won, a decrease of 18.9% from the previous year; the sales volume of the mid-range product hob pressure rice cooker was 22.6 billion won, a decrease of 10.2% from the previous year. Sales of less profitable ordinary rice cookers fell by only 1.4%. The export value of Cool Chen Electronics in the first half of the year was 4.8 billion won, a year-on-year decrease of 18.5%, and exports to China were blocked.