Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-03-10
Among the fancy goods brought home by a number of Chinese visitors to Japan, one favored item is a smart toilet seat. However, to the chagrin of these buyers it has been found that in many cases the specialized seats are actually made in China.
An ad of the Chinese brand Ryoji's smart toilet seat. (Photo/Ryoji) |
Among the fancy goods brought home by a number of Chinese visitors to Japan, one favored item is a smart toilet seat. However, to the chagrin of these buyers it has been found that in many cases the specialized seats are actually made in China.
Smart
toilet covers are an emerging line in China, with annual output reaching 1-2
million units, a great majority of which are shipped to Japan, leaving only
less than 300,000 in the domestic market, according to Shanghai's China
Business News.
Liu Wengui,
chair of the Feshan Bathroom Ware Industry Association, said that the case
underscores the blind fascination of Chinese people with foreign-made goods and
their lack of faith in indigenous wares.
Liu added
that with a history of just four to five years, the local smart toilet cover
industry now has some 30 manufacturers, located mainly in Zhejiang, Guangdong
and Fujian provinces, centers of the local bathroom-ware industry. Those
manufacturers have focused their sales on Japan, due to the limited demand from
the domestic market, where the product's penetration rate reaches less than 1%,
compared with 86% there.
Ma Yue,
managing director of Sanhualingzhi Electronics in Xi'an and founder of a local
smart toilet cover brand, said that annual sales of smart toilet covers top 4
million pieces in Japan a year, which are mostly manufactured in China,
Malaysia, and Vietnam. Factories of Japan's TOTO and Panasonic in Suzhou and
Hangzhou, for instance, have been turning out smart toilet covers.
Smart
toilet covers in Japan now boast increasingly sophisticated functions on top of
their original function of washing. These include heated rings, adjustable
water temperatures and dual nozzles.
Yang
Yuanqing, chair of PC giant Lenovo Group, said that Chinese people going to
Japan to purchase smart toilet covers underscores their lack of confidence in
the quality assurance of local brands.
Zhang
Yachen, an industry veteran, said that the purchase of smart toilet covers by
Chinese consumers in Japan is just a transitional phenomenon. "In sharp
contrast to the initial dominance of foreign brands, indigenous TV and
air-conditioner brands now enjoy a firm foothold in the domestic market,"
Zhang said.
Related Article:
No comments:
Post a Comment