Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014
SEOUL, KOREA - Coucou Electronics, Korea's No. 1 rice cooker maker, held a press conference on July 22 and said it would aggressively make overseas expansion after the initial public offering scheduled next month. The initial market value of Coucou Electronics, estimated at over 1 trillion won, is the largest among those companies to be listed in August.
The biggest market the company is aiming after the IPO is China. Chung Hyun-gyo, the company's finance executive, said, "The young Chinese consumers who were born after 1980 have purchasing power sufficient to buy premium rice cookers. But most inexpensive Chinese-made rice cookers fall short of their expectations." Coucou Electronics currently has over 800 sales outlets, with sales revenue from these stores estimated at 40 billion won.
Chung added, "We will launch rice cookers in red and gold colors so that the Chinese consumers find it attractive. In addition, we will add the porridge-making feature to the device." The main reason for the company to knock on the IPO market is to secure enough investment funds to move overseas.
The company's sales revenue last year was 499.5 billion won, with operating profit reaching 65.1 billion won, up 63 percent and 97 percent from the previous year. It was largely because of the rapid gains in sales revenue in overseas markets including China and Russia.
The estimated subscription price for Coucou Electronics is 80,000-104,000 won. Based on these figures, the total subscription volume would be 196 billion won to 255 billion won. The market capitalization following the IPO is estimated at 780 billion won to 1 trillion won.