Why did these classic home appliance brands disappear?

Once upon a time, the names "Peony, Venus, Swallow Dance, Narcissus, Chunlan" were so familiar to us. However, the best times these brands brought us have now become memories.

In this era of rapid technological progress and continuous change, the rise and fall of home appliance brands are the most direct witnesses. Many of our good memories also started with home appliances, from black and white TVs to LCD panels, from pulsator washing machines to drum washing machines, from single-door refrigerators to four-door refrigerators...

The changes in the appearance of home appliances silently record every bit of our lives. Whether it is large or small appliances, they have brought many changes to our lives. Home appliances free us from heavy, trivial and time-consuming housework, creating a more comfortable and more healthy living and working environment.

So what home appliance brands do you still remember?

The home appliance brands that we were so familiar with have different fates. Now, except for a small number of them that still exist in our sight, most of them have disappeared, transformed, or been acquired, and gradually faded out of the market. Many of those disappeared home appliance brands were very popular in the past, and their market share was also very high. However, due to various reasons, these brands were still eliminated by the market, and some are even very unfamiliar to the post-90s and post-00s.

According to statistics from the National Information Center, the number of competitive color TV brands has dropped from more than 50 in the 1990s to about 10 now; air conditioners have dropped from 110 to 8; refrigerators have dropped from 75 to 10; and washing machines have dropped from 80 to 7. In less than 20 years, the brand survival rate is less than 10%. How many of these disappeared brands are still remembered by people? Today, let's take a look back at those domestic home appliance brands that were once prosperous but eventually failed to escape the fate of bankruptcy.

Venus TV

Nowadays, televisions are a must-have household appliance in every household. However, in the 1980s, televisions almost became a synonym for the modernization of Chinese families at that time, bringing infinite excitement to our lives at that time. However, televisions at that time were no longer all black and white, and color televisions were what people desired most.

When talking about color TVs, we have to mention Venus TVs. Venus brand color TVs are famous products of the former Shanghai TV Factory, which was also the first enterprise in the country to introduce color TV production lines. At that time, it had a high reputation and popularity. Soon after the birth of Venus TV, it became a landmark product of Shanghai. In the later development process, Venus won various honors and awards, and also promoted the continuous development of the domestic TV industry.

However, after 2000, a price war for color TVs broke out across the country. Faced with the increasingly fierce price war, Venus, although it has always adhered to the "high-quality" route, had to join the ranks of price cuts. However, Venus's color TVs, which were not large enough, found it increasingly difficult to survive in the face of increasingly slim profits in the industry. So in 2003, Shanghai Radio and Television stopped the production of Venus. From its official production in 1982 to its suspension in 2003, Venus had experienced the most prosperous 21 years of reform and opening up, and has since withdrawn from the Chinese TV market.

Yanwu tape recorder

Speaking of the household appliance brands that were once at their peak, we have to mention Yanwu, a brand that people can never forget. All this stems from the advertising slogan that many people remember vividly - "Yanwu, Yanwu, a song brings a piece of love". This popular TV commercial lyric made the unknown Yanwu brand tape recorder famous overnight and became a household name in a short period of time.

In the following years, Yanwu developed into the largest tape recorder production base in China through image publicity and painstaking management. Its sales volume ranked first in the tape recorder industry in China for eight consecutive years, becoming the most well-known audio brand in my country. However, as more and more manufacturers saw the hot sales of tape recorder products, they also invested in the tape recorder industry. Faced with market competition, Yanwu also updated its tape recorder products, but its sales volume was seriously affected.

In the early 1990s, with the emergence and popularity of new home audio products such as CDs and VCDs, the domestic market share of radio recorders gradually shrank. At this time, Yanwu Group did not keep up with the times in terms of product development and updating, and did not timely transform into VCD production, and still only produced radio recorders. When it persisted until the end of 1996, Yanwu announced a complete suspension of production, and two years later the company declared bankruptcy. All that was left to us was that classic TV commercial and a beautiful memory.

Narcissus washing machine

Washing machines are household appliances that every family must use, especially in winter. Winter clothes are heavy and it is cold to wash by hand. Using a washing machine to wash clothes can avoid these problems. Although many people are using drum washing machines at home, what I still remember vividly is the double-barrel washing machine I used when I was a child. Speaking of double-barrel washing machine brands, we have to mention the white chrysanthemum and daffodil in the 1980s. At that time, the Chinese washing machine industry was still in the situation of "white chrysanthemum in the north and daffodil in the south". Now white chrysanthemum and daffodil have withered in the long river of history.

For southerners, owning a "Narcissus" washing machine is a source of pride. I remember that my family also had a Narcissus washing machine when my mother got married. This washing machine was in service for more than ten years. It was not until I was in junior high school that I traded in an old washing machine and bought a new one.

The entry threshold for washing machines is not high, and many manufacturers have begun to produce washing machines. The increase in brands will inevitably affect product sales and prices. Competition in the Chinese home appliance market began to intensify. In addition, washing machines began to shift from double-barrel to automatic at that time, and Narcissus, which mainly sold double-barrel products, found it difficult to turn around, resulting in a sharp drop in sales. At the same time, the cooperation with Whirlpool Corporation of the United States exacerbated the losses, and it was eventually acquired by Whirlpool due to heavy losses. Today, Narcissus home appliances have long withdrawn from the primary and secondary markets, and are produced by other companies under their own brands.

Summarize

No matter how glorious they were in the past, facing the changes of the times, they will eventually disappear in the long river of history if they are not careful. Whether these brands disappeared because they were born at the wrong time or because they failed to seize market opportunities, it seems not important now, but there are still many things worth thinking about.

"This is the best of times, this is the worst of times", in this era, the rise and sustainable development of a brand is never accidental. If domestic home appliance brands want to gain a foothold in the local market and resist the strong impact of foreign brands, they need to start from the user's usage needs, increase independent research and development of core technologies, establish brand awareness, and make themselves more competitive.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.