Promotional activities peak during holidays and sporting events. Taking the refrigerator market as an example, during the May 1 st holiday period, manufacturers took advantage of the timing of news reports of worker admiration and newlywed couples to introduce a series of unique advertisements. During the World's Cup soccer tournament, color television manufacturers rushed to promote the topic. The general standard of living for Chinese people right now is not particularly high. Overall corporate performance has taken a dive, resulting in increased unemployment.
People are more careful about expenditures on consumer goods.
This has caused a slump in the consumer market in 1H of 1998, and will have a significant impact on demand for household appliances in the near term. To remedy this, manufacturers have come up with promotion means to stimulate consumer demand. While price wars have driven certain minor brands out of the market and allowed the state-owned brands to lead the household appliance market, cutthroat price competition also had a negative impact on corporations' capital accumulation and technological development. This will inevitably be detrimental to the overall development of the household appliance industry, particularly since foreign color television companies have recently begun to join the price war. This has further aggravated the already beleaguered state-owned enterprises.