Net profit rarely declines, and R&D investment remains sluggish—has Supor become the major shareholder's "dividend withdrawal machine"?

Ask AI · How does the major shareholder SEB Group’s huge dividend distribution drive Surpuer’s growth?

The net profit attributable to the parent company has experienced its first annual negative growth in nearly five years, and “kitchenware king” Surpuer’s performance has dimmed.

Recently, Surpuer released its 2025 annual report. The financial report shows that the company achieved an operating revenue of 22.77B yuan for the year, a slight increase of 1.54% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 2.1B yuan, down 6.58% year-on-year.

Reviewing past performance, this is the first time since 2021 that Surpuer’s net profit attributable to the parent has experienced annual negative growth. At the same time, non-recurring net profit also declined by 7.28% to 1.91B yuan, indicating significant pressure on profitability.

However, against this backdrop, Surpuer “counterintuitively” announced a large dividend plan. The company plans to distribute a cash dividend of 26.30 yuan (including tax) for every 10 shares to all shareholders, totaling approximately 8B yuan in cash dividends. The dividend amount is roughly equal to the net profit for 2025, and this “earn and distribute proportionally” dividend policy has attracted market attention. Additionally, it is noteworthy that in this dividend plan, the French shareholder—SEB Group, holding a 83.16% stake—will enjoy more than 1.7 billion yuan.

Weak performance growth

As a leader in small home appliances, Surpuer’s main businesses include open-flame cookware and kitchen utensils, kitchen small appliances, kitchen and bathroom electrical appliances, and household electrical appliances.

By product line, Surpuer’s main revenue in 2025 comes from cooking appliances and cookware and utensils, amounting to 2.1B yuan and 8.71B yuan respectively, with slight year-on-year increases of 0.54% and 1.89%. These two categories together contribute nearly 70% of revenue. When combined with food preparation appliances, the “kitchen scene” business share further rises. The 2025 financial report shows that these three categories together account for over 85% of total revenue.

However, this revenue structure, heavily reliant on kitchen cookware and appliances over the long term, with other categories showing little progress, coupled with the ongoing “red ocean” competition in the small appliance industry, has become a major reason for Surpuer’s recent slowdown in growth.

Looking back at past performance, the last time Surpuer achieved double-digit revenue growth was in 2021, with revenue increasing by 16.07% to 21.59 billion yuan, but net profit attributable to the parent grew only 5.29% to 6.97B yuan, showing a clear gap between revenue and profit growth. Since then, the net profit growth rate in 2024 has fallen to 2.97%, and by 2025, this slowdown has fully turned into a substantial decline in profitability.

Regarding the decline in net profit attributable to the parent, Surpuer explained in its 2025 earnings brief that it was mainly due to the combined impact of export business and the overall lower yield rate of monetary funds. It also mentioned expenses, stating that “due to intensified domestic market competition, to support and achieve sustained growth in domestic sales, the company has invested marketing resources proportional to sales growth, leading to a slight year-on-year increase in sales expenses.”

Specifically, Surpuer’s sales expenses last year increased by 10.41% to 1.94B yuan, a growth of 227 million yuan from the previous year, accounting for over 10% of revenue; in stark contrast, its R&D expenses only increased slightly by 1.33% to 476 million yuan, accounting for 2.09% of revenue, with a mere 6 million yuan increase from the previous year. The increase in sales expenses is more than 30 times that of R&D.

It is also worth noting that Surpuer repeatedly emphasizes “continuous innovation” in its annual report, stating that it will be consumer demand-oriented and develop differentiated products. However, behind this innovation narrative, the company’s R&D investment intensity has not significantly increased. In recent years, its expense structure has shown a trend of “heavy marketing, light R&D”—from 2021 to 2024, sales expenses were 1.91 billion yuan, 2.41B yuan, 2.08 billion yuan, and 2.16B yuan; during the same period, R&D expenses were 450 million yuan, 416 million yuan, 431 million yuan, and 470 million yuan.

From the financial report, Surpuer’s continued profit slowdown is closely related to high sales expenses and a strategy heavily reliant on promotion-driven sales. Some also point out that, in industry comparisons, R&D investment has been insufficient over the long term, with R&D expense ratios below industry averages, which has somewhat constrained product innovation and brand competitiveness.

Market feedback indicates that other listed companies in the “small appliance” track, such as Bear Electric and Joyoung, have successfully opened new markets through brand renewal and a youth-oriented approach. However, most consumers still associate Surpuer with traditional categories like rice cookers, pressure cookers, and electric kettles, and the product structure and brand image are aging, making this an increasingly prominent issue. This may also be a key reason for Surpuer’s current gradual loss of core competitiveness.

Additionally, as performance faces pressure, Surpuer’s brand reputation has also been tested, with frequent product quality issues emerging. As of April 8, there are over 10,000 complaints related to Surpuer on the Black Cat Complaint Platform. In comparison, Joyoung has about 4,500 complaints, and Bear Electric about 1,300. Feedback from these platforms shows that consumer complaints mainly focus on product quality issues, such as coating peeling on cookware, severe plastic smell, and smart connectivity device malfunctions.

Surpuer (Photo by Cai Shumin)

Huge dividends do not decrease

Public information shows that Surpuer was founded in 1994, headquartered in Hangzhou, and is known as “China’s first listed company in the cookware industry.” On its 10th anniversary in 2004, the company successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. In 2006, Surpuer entered into a strategic partnership with France’s SEB Group, which announced it would acquire a 52.74% stake in the company for 327 million euros. By the end of 2025, SEB Group had become Surpuer’s largest controlling shareholder, holding a 83.16% stake.

As a foreign-controlled enterprise, Surpuer has leveraged SEB Group’s global channel resources and technology output to rapidly expand overseas markets, with export revenue accounting for over 30% in recent years.

However, it is noteworthy that, from the customer structure perspective, its export business is highly dependent on the major shareholder—between 2021 and 2025, about 90% of Surpuer’s export revenue came from SEB Group and its subsidiaries. In other words, Surpuer’s export business is more like OEM production for SEB Group.

Under this model, if SEB Group’s orders decrease, Surpuer’s export business will be impacted. The latest annual report shows that in 2025, the company’s export revenue declined slightly to 2.18B yuan, down 0.98% year-on-year. Surpuer explained in its financial report that this was mainly due to slightly reduced demand from SEB Group and other export clients, leading to a small decrease in export revenue compared to the previous year.

Additionally, in terms of gross profit margin, this OEM model has kept Surpuer’s export gross margin consistently lower than its domestic sales. In 2025, the company’s export gross margin was 17.19%, while domestic gross margin reached 28.59%, a difference of over 10 percentage points. This margin disparity has also somewhat eroded Surpuer’s overall profit margin.

It is worth mentioning that, despite performance pressures, Surpuer still maintains a high dividend payout tradition. Data shows that from 2022 to 2024, the company’s total cash dividends were 8B yuan, 7.34B yuan, and 2.44B yuan, respectively, while net profits attributable to the parent were 2.18B yuan, 2.24B yuan, and 2.07B yuan—dividend payout ratios approaching 100% for three consecutive years.

In 2025, Surpuer plans to distribute a cash dividend of 26.30 yuan (including tax) for every 10 shares, without issuing bonus shares or capital reserve transfer shares. The total cash payout will be about 2.18B yuan, with a dividend payout ratio again close to 100%, nearly “clearing out” the entire annual net profit.

Behind this huge dividend, SEB Group, holding 83.16%, is naturally the biggest winner—just in 2025, it can receive about 1.74 billion yuan from the approximately 2.24B yuan in dividends.

However, an undeniable reality is that while SEB Group enjoys substantial returns, it seems to lack substantial attention and investment in Surpuer’s R&D and long-term brand development. Outside observers tend to see SEB Group more as a stable “dividend ATM” and OEM base for Surpuer.

Reporter Qin Mingwei

Text Editor Ma Yunfei