Coway rented water purifiers with in-home service to survive the 1998 crash

When the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis hit South Korea, demand for big-ticket household appliances collapsed — nobody had the cash for an expensive water purifier bought outright. Coway faced a dead market for its core product. But underneath the affordability shock was a second, chronic problem the industry had never solved: a water purifier is only as safe as its last filter change, and customers neither remembered to service it nor trusted that a self-maintained unit was actually clean.

Coway's response in 1998 turned both problems into one answer. Instead of selling the appliance, it would rent it — and wrap the rental around the very thing the product needed: regular human servicing.

Coway introduced a monthly rental model: no upfront purchase, a recurring fee that bundled the machine, installation, filter replacements and — the signature move — scheduled in-home maintenance visits by a trained service person (the 'Cody', or Coway Lady) who cleans, checks and re-filters the unit on a cycle.

Rented purifiers with a monthly fee that bundled scheduled in-home service, turning a one-time sale into an ongoing relationship that solved affordability and trust.

Renting removed the upfront cost, making the purifier affordable during the crisis.

Scheduled visits guaranteed the water stayed clean, solving the trust and maintenance problem.

The recurring service created a lasting relationship and steady revenue, unlike a one-time sale.

The human visit built loyalty and was hard to replicate, reducing churn.

For a durable good that needs upkeep, bundle the required maintenance into a rental to erase the price barrier and build a recurring relationship.

A dead-sale market became a subscription business: 28 consecutive years of revenue growth and 10M+ rental accounts (6.55M in Korea) by 2024, on recurring fees plus in-home service. Made rental-plus-service the dominant model for home water and air appliances in Korea and beyond — the template of wrapping a durable good in scheduled human maintenance to create recurring revenue and loyalty.