Why Almost Every Microwave is Made by the Same Company

Video written by Adam Chase

[wadaw]

this was way more instructive than i thought it would be. is there one company that makes all the bricks?

[rdlghts]

i swear the amount of stock footage this dude uses could be used as a movie

[sblack]

Where Microwaves are seemingly somewhat cheap even though they are made in a monopoly, glasses are extremely unjustifiably expensive in the Luxottica monopoly.

[monticore]

I work in auto parts and this is everywhere, we sell a generic brand of electrical components and a name brand, both are made by the same company but the name brand is often twice the price. Same goes for oil, brake pads, filters, and brake rotors

[ianmontgomery]

When I worked in China in the early 2000's 1/3rd of the worlds microwave ovens were being built in the Shunde area of Guangdong province. There were multiple factories producing them and Midea was probably the biggest. they were certainly the most innovative - they produced the first steamer/microwave combination that I had seen.

[godminnette]

And yet, some microwaves allow you to input a secret combination to turn off the sound, and some don't. When in reality all should let you just do it without having to look in the manual or online.

[davidlamb]

I actually have a Midea brand microwave oven. I was only willing to purchase this totally unknown brand, because (1) only they sell one that fits my actual 16" high space, and (2) I'd learned that they make all the microwaves for all the other companies, so I figured that it would be just as good as any other.

[LaughingOrange]

OED is Original Equipment Designer. Which do everything from design to manufacturing for other companies. Their customers can set any specification for the product, and the OED does the rest.

[BearJoyner]

Wasn't until the Jetlag the Game announcement that I actually realized the age of this video

[maltava]

In case you wondering what "This Montage" was at 4:58.
"The Toyota Camry and the Lexus ES 350 are the same car, both owned by Toyota.

Orbit, Juicy Fruit, Doublemint, Big Red, Hubba Bubba, and 5 Gum are all owned by Wrigley, which is owned by Mars.

Tyson owns Ball Park Franks, Hillshire Farm, and Jimmy Dean.

Friskies, Fancy Feast, and Purina are all owned by Nestle.

Stouffer's, Hot Pockets, Lean Cuisine, DiGiornio, and Buitoni are all also owned by Nestle.

Unilever owns Good Humor, Breyers, Popsicle, Klondike, Magnum, and Ben & Jerry's.

Procter and Gamble own Head and Shoulders, Pantene, Aussie, and Herbal Essences.

P&G also owns Swiffer, Mr.Clean, Febreze, Puffs, Bounty, and Charmin.

Match Group owns Tinder, Match, Hinge, and OKCupid.

There are so many more but it's past midnight and I have to finish this video."

[RealEngineering]

“Famousish” -That guy from half as interesting

Putting that on my tombstone

[Rhewin]

When I sold appliances it was really, *really* difficult to explain this concept to people. Unless you care about matching the looks of all of your appliances, it will not make a difference. Pick the one that has the features you like at the best price. The only thing harder was explaining that no, the microwave will not explode because it has metal walls with a metal rack on the inside.

[notquitenil]

Just as an extra kicker, most of these manufacturers will proudly display a "made in the USA" label somewhere on the package so they can pretend that they're one of the few brave businesses not subservient to our Chinese overlords. And this is technically legal, because yes, it was at one point touched in its production before packaging within the border of the United States. I work at a plant that assembles washing machines, and we do that exact same thing despite all but one part (the metal drum that's too large to ship) being made in either China or Vietnam. Goes to show, if you really wanna buy domestic, you have to look for real niche local stuff, because anybody with any economic reach is going to be looking to outsource.

[TheNuclearGeek]

THANK YOU! I can finally speak to my parents and siblings again!
10 years ago when I first moved out on my own I purchased what I thought to be a great GE microwave. My mother was a die hard Black & Decker fan (like I would know that, right!?) We haven't spoken since. But, I've sent them a link to this video and we've began emailing again with hopes that we will soon perhaps even speak on the phone. You may have saved my family! Thank you!

[illesizs]

Imagine going to war with China, and instead of an oil shortage, you end up with an everything shortage.

[NickBiancalana]

Luxottica is so much worse than just owning all the glasses manufacturing... they also own vision insurance (Eyemed) and they own optical companies like Target Optical, Pearle Vision, and LensCrafters. What happens when you make all the glasses that are sold in all your stores and paid for by your insurance provider? Can you say monopoly?

[Tengokujin]

I love having a Panasonic microwave. It actually adjusts the power level when I adjust the power level, instead of turning off and on in some semblance of "adjusting the power level".
(As indicated by the referenced Wirecutter article, Panasonic still makes their own microwaves)

[rtos]

There must be more to this than only volume manufacturing. Components like magnetrons & high voltage transformers used in microwave ovens are probably not used in any other consumer product. So there's also the aspect of highly specialised items to be manufactured in volumes for consumer goods.

[ghost]

When I worked at Ford one of our production lines was tagged as "Fairmont/Zephyr"
Literally the only difference between the 2 models was the nameplate.
Yet there were still a lot of people who would buy the more expensive Zephyr from Lincoln/Mercury than the cheaper Fairmont sold by Ford.
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln "You can fool some of the people all of the time; and all of the people some of the time; but to really make a fortune you find a way to fool all of the people all of the time."

[Duckopoly]

My man called the Cat Bell a Mushroom.