Cewe

Cewe based in Oldenburg, is a photo service provider with 14 production sites.

Cewe

Company type	Public
Traded as	FWB: CWC
ISIN	DE0005403901
Industry	photographic processing commercial printing
Founded	1961
Headquarters	Oldenburg , Germany
Area served	Europe, except Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Iceland, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Malta and Cyprus
Products	Stock photography
Revenue	780,200,000 Euro (2023)
Operating income	81,610,000 Euro (2023)
Net income	57,310,000 Euro (2023)
Total assets	665,960,000 Euro (2023)
Number of employees	3,731 (2023)
Website	https://www.cewe.de

History

On May 1, 1912, August Friedrich Carl Wöltje founded a “photographic institute” in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony. From 1924 he expanded his business to include the sale of cameras and accessories. Shortly after the currency reform in 1948, his son-in-law Heinz Neumüller joined the company.

In 1950, Carl Wöltje opened one of the first color laboratories in Germany and, with 17 employees, supplied a regular customer base of several 100 photo shops. Cewe was founded under the name Cewe Color in 1961 by Heinz Neumüller in Oldenburg. The name came from the initials of his father-in-law, Carl Wöltje.

With increasing demand for color photos, Cewe built a large photo laboratory in 1964 on a 50,000 m2 site in Oldenburg-Kreyenbrück. In 1971 the company became active abroad for the first time, in the Netherlands. In 1973, Cewe merged with United Color in Hamburg and Bremen.

From then on, the company name was United Cewe Color companies. In the course of the following years, Cewe took over further laboratories in Germany and abroad and became the market leader for photo development in Germany in the course of the transition from black and white to color photography in the 1970s.

From 1980, photo retail stores opened in numerous hypermarkets and inner cities under the Ivema or Fotopoint designations. From there it was also possible to have photos printed on gifts such as mugs or T-shirts.

From 1986 onwards, the company opened further plants in Mönchengladbach, Paris, Berlin, Worms and Dresden. In 1989, Cewe introduced the Eurocombi bag for storing photo orders. In 1992, the group of companies was restructured under the umbrella of Cewe Color Holding AG and listed on the stock exchange in 1993 by Hubert Rotharme. Cewe then expanded in France, Scandinavia and Central Europe. The company's shares have been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 1993.