Beate Uhse AG is a
German industry group with focus on selling adult entertainment in the form of
sex toys,
lingerie,
clothing and
pornography. It is the most successful company in the German
sex industry, and the country's leading pornography retailer. It was founded by former German
war-time pilot and sex pioneer
Beate Uhse-Rotermund in 1946 and started out as a distibutor of
pamphlets on
family planning called
Schrift X (roughly:
Writing X or
Paper X) which was a major success. In 1962 the company opened the world's first
sex shop in
Flensburg,
West Germany. When
pornography was finally made legal in
West Germany in 1976, Beate Uhse was well-prepared with a widely known and respected
brand name and an established
mail order business. By 1992 it owned 30 sex shops and 25 cinemas, had a turnover of 100 million
Deutschmarks, and 10 million customers visited its premises. It currently has over 1,500
employees, is active in 60
countries and has been listed on the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 1999. Uhse remained the chairwoman of the company until her death in 2001. In 2004 Beate Uhse AG opened the first Mae B.
shop, a chain of
sex shops specifically aimed at
female consumers. In 2004 the combined
sales of the Beate Uhse industry group was €280 million, making it the largest
distributor of
adult-related entertainment and
products in the
world.
Profits have dropped significantly in the year 2006 - 2007.