China Daily (Hong Kong)

Fotile Kitchenwar­e cooks North America expansion plan

- By SHI XIAOFENG in Ningbo shixf @chinadaily.com.cn

Ningbo Fotile Kitchenwar­e Co Ltd, which makes highend appliances and integrated kitchens, will accelerate its expansion into North America next year, having tasted success in Asia.

“We are going to target the Chinese-American families as our initial forays have yielded success,” said Mao Zhongqun, chairman and founder of Fotile.

According to Mao, Fotile’s range of hoods has many advanced technologi­es like smoke suction, making the products the best choice for cooking Chinese cuisine, which normally produces more smoke than Western food preparatio­n.

“Many Chinese-American families visited our online shop and placed orders for our hoods. Some even gifted them. That gave us a lot of confidence,” he said.

“They don’t need to worry any more that cooking Chinese food the traditiona­l way will fill their homes with smoke or bother their neighbors.

“Our sales in North America are expected to exceed 100 million yuan ($14.51 million) by the end of this year.”

Unlike its peers’ original equipment manufactur­er strategy, Fotile marched into overseas markets with its own brand, targeting highend consumers in 16 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

That strategy seems to have paid off well as Fotile topped the rankings for kitchenwar­e makers in Malaysia and Pakistan last year, ahead of other internatio­nal giants.

Fotile’s sales reached 6 bil- lion yuan by the end of October this year, up 26 percent year-on-year, much higher than the 12.4 percent of the entire domestic market.

Founded in 1996, Fotile was the first domestic manufactur­er to focus on high-end electrical kitchenwar­e. That focus was sustained for 20 years.

“I believe in craftsman spirit. Making all-out efforts to produce competitiv­e and high-quality products — that’s been the story of my whole career,” said Mao.

At a time when competitor­s ploughed their disposable cash into diversific­ations like real estate investment­s or business expansion, Fotile invested 5 percent of its sales revenue into research and technology innovation, double the industry’s spend on R&D.

Fotile produced China’s first independen­tly designed deep range hood in 1996. The next year, it developed the nation’s first artificial intelligen­cepowered deep range hood that can detect smoke and gas leaks, and turn on automatica­lly and suck them out.

The company had been making European style hoods for the past several years. It also developed hoods with ring suction technology that suck out smoke efficientl­y.

Fotile’s sink dishwasher is a three-in-one device that combines a kitchen sink, dishwasher and fruit and vegetable cleaning machine. Designed for the domestic market, this space-saving appliance took five years to develop. It produced much success for Fotile, capturing 32 percent of the domestic dishwasher market.

Making all-out efforts to produce competitiv­e and high-quality products — that’s been the story of my whole career.” Mao Zhongqun, chairman and founder of Fotile

 ?? SHI XIAOFENG / CHINA DAILY ?? A worker polishes the surface of an exclusive sink dishwasher in Fotile’s factory at Ningbo Hangzhou Bay New Zone, Zhejiang province.
SHI XIAOFENG / CHINA DAILY A worker polishes the surface of an exclusive sink dishwasher in Fotile’s factory at Ningbo Hangzhou Bay New Zone, Zhejiang province.

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