First, rich people can buy water to drink.

In Congo, people’s perception of water purifier might be not sufficient. Their demand for water purifier was not too much because the national income was not high. In the shopping malls or on the streets, you couldn’t see any shops sold water purifiers. I asked some local people, where was the source of their drinking water? They said rich men all bought bottled waters to drink.

Second, the market of bottled waters.

In Kinshasa, there were 28 different brands of bottled water. Coca-Cola’s bottled water brand was called Dasani here, and there were the other brands like Canadian pure, Swissta, and American water etc.

If you would like to know the water quality analysis in Kinshasa, Congo, please download this and it is free：https://goo.gl/HRtTSE

Third, there are rich mineral deposits in Congo.

Congo’s copper mines yield was the second in the world. There were rich deposits in this region, such as gold, diamond and cobalt.

According to the local bottled water manufacturers, people lived in the suburbs took water from well. Even bottled waters were also making by underground water.

Because there were rich mineral deposits here, the heavy metal content of underground water was very high. The local residents were likely to get heavy metal poisoning, so we needed to watch out for this.

Fourth, the Congo River.

The Congo River is the second largest river in the world. It is 4640 kilometers long, and it is also the deepest river in the world. Its average depth is about 200 meters. Besides, it is second to none for its streamflow and danger.

In Congo, the Congo River was rapid, so people could development hydroelectricity power. It accounted for 90% of total electricity generation. However, the power plants’ machines were too old, so power failure was a frequent occurrence. When I was waiting for the plane in Kinshasa, I ran into once of this.

Fifth, the national income in Congo.

In Congo, blue collar’s average wage is between US$ 100-150 a month, and white collar’s salary is about US$ 200 a month. (This information was provided by Mr. Yang who was a chairman of the bakery.) However, police officer’s wage is only US$ 50. It caused a lot of corruption. Most of our members were asked for bribes when we entered Customs. I even paid US$ 20 to leave Congo.

Sixth, the poorer the country is, the dirtier the bills will be.

I have been to Nigeria. Every bill was old and unclean there, and the same thing here.

Seventh, one of the most dangerous country in Africa.

According to the information of Wikipedia, Congo is the one of the most dangerous country in Africa. Supermarkets needed to hire a policeman to stand at the door with a gun. In Kinshasa, even Mr. Yang who run a bread factory had to hire six armed policemen to guard 24 hours. When the Taiwanese supervisors went out, they must have bodyguards with them.

The receptionist asked me twice did I need a bodyguard when I would like to go dining and go to supermarket. It’s the same as Philippines and Nigeria. This country is not only danger, but also Customs corruption is an issue. Even getting through

Customs would get obstacles, how could this country be respected and progressed?

Last, the traffic in Kinshasa.

I had traveled to Africa a lot of times for business, but I never saw a traffic jam like this. Kinshasa’s traffic jam situation was more serious than Cairo’s. On a six-lane road, cars could drive on the wrong side just because of the traffic jam. Cars from opposite side even drove to our road, and occupied two lanes of us.

According to the local driver, the people who lived in here believed in Catholicism. They went to church at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. When we arrived, they just ended.

After two days (it’s on Tuesday), I went to airport to take plane. I was afraid of traffic jam, so I departed six hours before schedule. Though it wasn’t Sunday, it was still a lot of cars on the road. I found that the six-lane road didn’t have traffic light, no wonder it always got traffic jam. I heard that the Boulevard Lumumba was built by Japanese. I don’t know if the Japanese architects knew this situation, would they have any feeling?

First, water purifier industry.

In Mozambique, the industry of household water purifier still hasn’t developed much. It’s just like we had two salesmen who went to Africa to conduct a survey of shoes market before. One of them said the market had a great potential, because everyone didn’t wear shoes there. But the other person held an opposite viewpoint. In my opinion, I would agree with the second salesman’s outlook. If you don’t even have money to eat, do you consider whether drinking water is filtered?

I went to local shopping mall and downtown to make a market research two days, and none of the shops or counters sold water purifiers.

If you want to know the water quality analysis in Mozambique, you can download it’s free.

Second, the important raw material of water purifiers filter media.

Activated carbon which is made by coconut shells is an indispensable filtering media for each water purifier. According to the statistics of APCC, Mozambique is the world’s top 20 countries for coconut yield. Unfortunately, there are no active carbon subcontracting factories here. Coconut shells can be only used to making something with low commercial value, such as plywood industry.

Third, rich deposits of mineral in Mozambique.

Although there are rich mineral deposits here, heavy metal content of groundwater is also higher than other countries. In Mozambique, most of livelihood water is taken from well water, so we hope the water purifier market can be popularized here as soon as possible.

Fourth, men doing women’s work.

4.1 Men sell women’s underwears.

There is a feature in this country that men are doing women’s work. Every roadside stand which is selling second-hand lingerie is all men, and it’s usual for local people.

4.2 Clothing alteration service.

There were several sewing machines on the side of the road, and the people in charge of clothing alteration were men. All the clothes sold in the market were second-hand, including shoes and lingerie. If it doesn’t fit, they can provide you alteration service immediately.

Fifth, the second-hand market.

Everything we saw in the market was all second-hand, such as underwear, shirts, coats, shoes, hats, and so forth. Besides, you barely saw new cars on the road. Lots of cars on the road were also second-hand, and most of them came from Japan. Electric wires, cellular phones, and 3C products can all be second-hand. Some members came from Taiwan together with me before. They had exported clothes, air conditioners and car parts which were second-hand, too.

In Africa, people recycle and reuse things what we threw away. It’s good for earth because it reduces much pollution.

Sixth, something you should know for cooperation with Southeast Africa customers.

Though India and Pakistan are as incompatible as fire and water on politics, they are closely interdependent races in Southeast Africa. Although their population is only one percent of the local population, they control the main economic lifeline. If someone wants to penetrate the local market, he need to deal with them.

A. Tap water quality is poor?
We often heard our customers who operate water purifiers in business Malaysia said the water quality is poor there. But what’s the problem? According to the data of Taiwanese water purifier knowledge base：goo.gl/LXiuPu

D）The development trend and evolution of RO water dispensers.
From 2000 to 2005, only Aquajoy and Ronak were active in the market.
But from 2006 to 2010, there were about 10 brands have been added to the market, such as easywell purepro and Fluxtek etc.
From 2013 to 2015, there were more than 50 brands competing fiercely in this market, like ALYA, easywell, Puritec and Masoumi.
From 2016 to 2017, the number of brands on the market has increased to more than 100, but most of them came from Iran. They bought major components from China, and then doing simple processing and assembly in Iran.

E）Counterfeits are rampant.
EaseweLL is the best-selling and the best-known brand from Taiwan to Iran in 2017. However, tall trees catch much wind, the local assemblers in Iran often counterfeited its trademark. They couldn’t guard against it and also bothered Taiwanese manufacturers. Some local factories even did injection molding by themselves, but carved “made in Taiwan” on their products to mix the spurious with the genuine.

In recent years, the development of Chinese water purifier equipment is getting better and better. We can see the changes on Aquatech show which is held in Shanghai annually. No matter the innovation and breakthrough in manufacturing technology, the research and development of new materials, or the appearance design of the water purifiers, they all place themselves above America and Europe. Besides, European and American manufacturers also joined this big market. They took over some local manufacturers, and even invested, designed, manufactured and marketed in China with one hundred percent. These also brought a lot of effects on China.

▲For the past few years, the 5 main development trends of Chinese water purifier industry are as the following：

First, the trend of smart water purifier.

Nowadays, more and more manufacturers start to develop smart products. They not only make consumers enjoying more convenient use of experience by the Internet of things (IoT), but also let vendors know the consumers’ habits. Therefore they can provide more service for them in the future. The smart water purifier can provide these service：

1. When water quality is unqualified, it will remind you to change the cartridges.

2. The water purifier would not work when using unauthorized cartridges.

3. The automatic detection of water leak, and suspended water supply by itself.

4. Remind you that there is no water in system.

After water purifier has become intelligent, it could monitor, upload, dispose, and warn through the Internet. Manufacturers can even rent water purifiers to consumers by means of the Internet, and then customers pay the bill by cell phones. How much the water you used, how much the money you needed to pay. Will this change weed out traditional water purifiers? Maybe we should observe for a while.

Second, the development trend of manifold type RO water dispenser.

In China, because the workers’ salary is constantly rising, the manufacturing cost has increased a lot. In order to save the assembly cost of water purifiers and RO system, more and more manufacturers start to develop manifold type of system. The concept is like a car’s engine. RO water system waterway and related parts are all installed in one mold. The benefits of this design are saving the assembly cost and many connectors. It is not only saving the cost but also reducing the opportunity of water leak. These technologies originated from two water purifier companies in Taiwan, one is KEMFLO, and the other is ALYA. KEMFLO developed integrated waterway module by using hot laminate technology injection manifold bracket to buried pipes in, and ALYA developed the injection technique of buried pipes. Each one has its own merits. In addition, ALYA obtained a number of utility model patents in 2008.

Taiwanese patent number：M 336818

Chinese patent number：ZL2007 0181426.7

In Cixi China, we also found that some same trades imitated and produced our patent product which type is ROP-415.

Third, the direct flow type of RO water system development trend.

The direct flow type of RO water system has become more and more popular in China. There are three reasons why it has become so popular.

1. It can reduce the secondary pollution for water-storage tanks. Besides, the water is the freshest when it just comes out. Currently, the water making amount of great majority is between 500 gallons and 800 gallons per day.

2. Consumers are demanding higher quality. Because most families’ kitchen counter is not large, they would not like to take too much space to put a water-storage tank. They would rather spend more money buying a direct flow RO water system.

3. Because China is a vast continent, the difference of water quality is significant in each area. For example, theTDS are up to 524ppm in Shanghai. However, it is only 76ppm in Shenzhen. The difference of water quality is pretty huge. So the direct of RO water dispenser can adjust the wastewater rate of water purifier. Hence, an adjustable flow restrictor is used for big direct flow type of RO system.

If you want to know the information of water quality in each area, please go to this website：https://www.goo.gl/xScn2U

This technology also originated from two companies in Taiwan. One is ALYA, and the other is PURICOM. In addition, because of it ALYA obtained many utility model patents in America, Taiwan and China in 2005.

America：7.368.055B2

Taiwan：M277745

China：ZL2005 2 0008968.5

This product also enabled us to get an innovation award of Ministry of Economic Affairs, R.O.C.

Fourth, development trend of compound cartridges.

In China, water purifier industry has also been developing the smaller size product.

Take filter cartridge an example, one cartridge could only fill one filter material into it before. But now you can fill two or more different filter materials into a w cartridge.

Fifth, Development trend of installation free water filters.

In China, in order to save the installation cost of water purifier, more and more customers choose to buy the portable water purifier. Some tenants bought it because they were not allowed to drill holes on the wall. If portable water purifier had the function to boil water, it would be more convenient to make tea, coffee and milk. It will be more popular for this design.

It’s worth mentioning that China announced “Minimum allowable value of water efficiency and water efficiency grades for reverse osmosis drinking water system ( GB34914-2017) on October 1^st, 2017. It was the first mandatory standard for water purifier industry, and the government officially implemented it on November 1^st, 2018. It means they would take this mandatory standard to ask the water purifier industry to save water.

▲The water saving rules are as the following：

1. The recycling rate of reverse osmosis waste water shall not exceed 35%.

2. Water purification equipment should be marked with water-saving effect before on sales.

3. It should be submitted to Chinese Academy of Sciences or Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine.

▲More worldwide market analysis of water purifier：

https://www.easywellwater.com/tw/

https://blog.alyawater.com/tw/

▲Extending reading：

http://m.cheaa.com/n_detail/w_526398.html

First, the emerging market for water purifier.

Why do I say that? As I visited three cities in Greece, including Athens, Santorini and Thessaloniki. I asked several restaurants and caf’es of some questions. They answered that their tap water was very clean so they didn’t need any water purifiers.  That means they didn’t have the habit of using water purifiers. We spent eight days in these three cities, and didn’t see any water purifier stores on the streets. In addition, we lodged at four guesthouses in total during this period. They didn’t install any water purifier equipment in kitchen either.

We took the pressure gauge to measure the water pressure in each area of Greece. They were listed below：

1. The coffee shop which was located in the urban district of Athens：3.8 kg/cm2.

2. The guesthouse which was located in Athens：4.95 kg/cm2.

3. Santorini Island：2.5 kg/cm2

If you would like to know about the other tap water quality analyses in Greece, please go to this website：

Second, the graffiti walls were surprising.

There were a lot of graffiti on the exterior walls of buildings. You could see them on the walls everywhere. It had become a feature in Athens. Even the vans also had graffiti on their bodies. It was more exaggerative than New York.

Third, their life habits were similar to the Middle Eastern countries.

Though Greece joined the European Union, their culture, diet and lifestyle were deeply influenced by the Middle East (Muslim countries), such as hookah and flea market. Almost every one could speak English here. This advantage made them stronger than the rest of European countries. It’s worth mentioning that there were lots of pickpockets in Athens. My family and I were stolen twice in these few days, and one of them was a couple of women. Fortunately, we watched out for this situation and reacted fast enough, so we didn’t lose anything. In here, the guesthouses owners and the taxi drivers kept telling us to be careful of pickpockets.

Forth, Santorini.
Because writer is a businessman, I have been to many countries. Santorini had a population of 14,000, and the land area was about 73 Km2. However, here was the second place where I had been without a traffic light. Although there were no traffic lights here, still a lot of cars were drove on the road.
According to my observation, Santorini was a rectangular island. From south to north, there were not too many intersections on the road. This might be the reason why they didn’t need traffic lights. It wasn’t like Palau. Though Palau’s population was 21,300 and the area of land were all more than Santorini, about 466 Km2 there weren’t lots of cars on the road.

The market for water purification equipment was not mature enough.
I visited Kazakhstan twice in 2014 and 2015. At that time, water purifier market was not full-grown enough there. According to Taiwan Customs’ export statistics, there were two water purification equipment exported from Taiwan to Kazakhstan in 2011, but the total amount was only US$2,400. In 2012, although the value of water purifier exported to Kazakhstan had increased, the total amount was still only US$150,000.
There were very few water purification equipment stores in Kazakhstan, but you could see LV or Gucci’s luxury handbag specialty stores everywhere.
According to my observation, there were several water purifier brands in Kazakhstan, including Atlas, Казахстан and АКВАФОР. In terms of brand awareness, Italian brand atlas and Russian brand АКВАФОР own most market share.

Dramatic changes
Three years later, I visited Almaty, Kazakhstan again. When I was walking in the downtown, I found that the hypermarket was full of water filter stores. Their 90% source of goods came from a Russian brand, Aquaphor.
In addition, the product price became very competitive because the water purifier products which came from China was also full of the market. More surprisingly, when you see the retail price of German brand, BRITA, in the store.



We could see that the Russia brand, Aquaphor, its 2.5-litre liter pitcher’s retail price was KZT 2,490. It was less than NT$ 250.


However, German brand, BRITA, its 3.5-litre liter pitcher’s retail price was KZT 2,499, but it had an additional cartridge.


More interestingly, the two brands competed with each other. An Aquaphor cartridge cost KZT 1,290. (It is about NT$ 130.)


Nevertheless, a BRITA cartridge cost KZT 3,100. (It is about NT$130.) Unexpectedly, the price of BRITA cartridge was higher than its pitcher’s with an extra cartridge.

I thought that BRITA probably copied the marketing strategy of EPSON printer. The price of changing a cartridge is the same as buying a new printer. However, BRITA and EPSON sell different types of products. It remained to be seen that if Brita's marketing strategy will be such successful as EPSON's.
 

The local importer invited ALYA to set up a factory.
Whenever I visited Kazakhstan, the local businessmen invited our company to establish a factory here. While one of them saw potential in Kazakhstan’s water filter market, but without technology. He would like to cooperate with us, and we didn’t promise him. As a result, he stayed at our stall and refused to leave.

Tap water
Almaty’s tap water was from Tianshan Mountain’s snow water. By asking the local restaurant in Almaty, I learned that the restaurants here used water purifier to filter tap water. The only difference is that their water purifier was basic model. (2 or 3 stages only.) Besides, it is weird that Almaty’s tap water was not chlorinated.

(A) Foreword
Turkey is a Special country although their currency have been depreciation much, but
their Economic growth rate is still rising.
   
Why, because the people lived here are working hard, most of people wish to make money, especially for water filter industry owners. 

As the water quality in Turkey are not so good with high TDS (total dissolve solid). For Turkey water quality, please refer to : https://goo.gl/1YQfj6

At the beginning, Turkey water filter buyers were imported a lot of  ompleted set of water filter、residential Reverse Osmosis water systems…from Taiwan and Korea…but they found the prices from China are much lower than those countries， of cause they switched orders to China; but very soon late, they returned orders to Taiwan again, as they complained the poor quality from the lower prices country.

Since 10 years ago the water filter market in Turkey were become getting competitive, then Turkey buyers changes to be a manufacturers, like: Fil-tek、Richwater、ESLI、Hazar…, they set up many factories making cartridge 、water pressure tank、filter housing、boost  pump…etc.

These are not good news for Taiwan manufacturers, as Taiwan makers are getting  lost orders from them.

(B) Trend of water filter in Turkey market
In Turkey, the TDS of water quality is from 177-370ppm, please refer to : http://t.cn/R33QGuP
Therefore residential RO water system in this market are much popular here, not only popular in tradition RO systems but also popular in compact RO system.

Now a day, most RO system makers develop completed set of residential compact RO system, but they built-in  one 4 gallons pressure storage tank in the machine case peculiarly, those “compact” RO system looks not compact one but  looks like jumbo.
 

(C) Special street offers water filter
In Istanbul downtown, many water filter dealers set up a shop selling water filter , RO water system, and related components in the same street, which street name called “karakoy”.

(D) 2017 export total amount of water filters from Taiwan to Turkey
Totally was 6.1%.

(E)Turkey’s import tex for water filters
Completed set machine：1.8%
Filter housing and related parts: 6.5%
Filter cartridge：1.8% 
Carbon filter cartridge：4%
Other filter parts：1.0%-2.5%