China's mattress maker Sleemon dreams of world success

Another huge advantage of mattress production in China is the cost-effective integration. "China's supply chain cost and logistics cost are relatively low," the company said.

Compared with the United States, which used to lead the global mattress industry, China's industry is relatively young. However, driven by the improvement of living conditions of the Chinese population, and the huge investments in construction, mainly in the residential and hospitality sectors, mattress consumption has experienced a rapid growth over the past two decades.

Now China has surpassed the US as the world's largest mattress consumption market. China's total mattress consumption increased from $680 million in 2002 to $9.31 billion in 2017, with a compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, of 17.77 percent, according to the International Sleep Products Association.

In addition to the increasing number of demands, the taste of Chinese consumers is also becoming more varied.

In the history of mattresses in China, hard beds were dominant until woven-wire mattresses invented by Simmons were introduced into China in the 1930s. For a long time, the name of Simmons was regarded as the synonym of advanced mattress in the minds of most Chinese people.

In the early 1980s, a large number of domestic innerspring mattresses began to emerge, which initially established the development foundation and the early stage shape of China's soft bed industry. Sleemon was one of them. Established in 1984, the company began to manufacture mattresses for foreign brands in 1997.

Although the launch of the new mattress has coincided with the novel coronavirus outbreak, the company is making every effort to minimize the impact and get back to their business.

According to the company, no Sleemon employees have been infected. As the outbreak is now under control in China, Sleemon has become the first batch of enterprises to return to normal work in an all-round way. At present, a full production capacity has been restored.

At present, Sleemon has six production facilities in China plus another one in Thailand, which was established in 2018 as one important step of its "going global" campaign. These bases have a total annual production capacity of 6 million mattresses.

Overseas mattress market has not seen significant increase in the production scale or the profit in the past three years, while China's mattress industry is growing rapidly. "Compared with foreign brands, Chinese mattresses usually set a profit margin of 30 percent to 40 percent, while foreign brands need to reach 100 percent or even 200 percent," the company said. They believe this is one of the reasons why China's mattresses are becoming popular in global markets.

However, the foreign brands have a "natural advantage" as it is easier for them to develop strategic cooperation with high-end hotels.

Sleemon was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2012, becoming the first listed company in China's mattress industry.