Refrigerator industry consolidation with hard work

OFweek smart home network news In recent years, the refrigerator market runs low, the situation continues to slump. The industry has a narrow space for expansion, and the stock market has become increasingly useless. In order to open the ceiling of demand, the industrial upgrading wave rises again: “Frequency conversion” keeps “attacking the hills”, “Intelligent” seeks to break through, and “Big capacity” continues to rise. Cold alternative direct cooling. The new market demand created by the consumption upgrade is becoming the main dividend to promote the development of the industry. Recently, China National Grid visited some refrigerator companies in the Hefei Appliance Industry Park. Each company expressed its views and opinions on the development situation facing the industry and the future trend of refrigerator products. The views are not the same, but without exception, "wind cooling", "frequency conversion", "smart", and "large capacity" are the common focus of all companies. China National Grid Visits Hefei Appliance Industry Park Air-cooled, variable-frequency, large-capacity, large-sized, spacious and attractive Air-cooled refrigerators have been the best in the past two years, and their penetration rate has continued to increase. The upward momentum has been strong. According to the monitoring data of Orvi Cloud Network, the retail penetration rate of air-cooled refrigerators in 2016 was as high as 80.2%, an increase of 13.0% over the same period of last year. Among them, in the two-door refrigerator market, the retail penetration rate of 201L-250L air-cooled refrigerators was 51.1%, and the retail penetration rate of 251L-300L was 77.3%. The three-door air-cooled market, especially the small volume of air-cooled infiltration, is also particularly rapid. Mei Yonghe, deputy general manager of Midea Refrigeration Division, told reporters that the reason why the market share of air-cooled products expands quickly is because of the fast-paced lifestyle and the large-scale entry into China's refrigerator companies in recent years. "China's refrigerator companies have entered the bureau, which has lowered the cost of air-cooled refrigerators and flattened the gap between air-cooled and direct-cooled refrigerators." According to reports, the price difference between air-cooled products and direct-cooled products in small refrigerators is 10% - 15%, the spread on the big refrigerator is 5% -10%. The lower prices have gradually released the purchasing power of air-cooled refrigerators, especially in small and medium-sized air-cooled units. Wang Peng, sales manager of Anhui Premier Electric Group Co., Ltd., said that as consumers pay more attention to the health and safety of food, the advantages of air-cooled refrigerators will be further highlighted. However, under the circumstance of “rushing all the way”, home appliance industry observers also reminded that air-cooled refrigerators should not “run too fast”, and air-cooled technology needs time to digest and precipitate. Hefei Home Appliance Industry Park, a refrigerator company In addition to “air cooling,” “frequency conversion” is another high-frequency vocabulary in the industry. With the maturity of frequency conversion technology, the penetration rate of inverter refrigerators has gradually increased, and sales volume has grown rapidly. According to the Ove Cloud Network monitoring data, the penetration rate of retail sales in the variable frequency market in 2016 reached 53.0%, an increase of 7.2% over the same period of last year. At the same time, industry online monitoring data show that in March 2017 after a significant increase in January and February, inverter refrigerators still maintained rapid growth. It is reported that in March, the inverter refrigerators sold 1.015 million units, an increase of 66.5% year-on-year, accounting for 13.8% of the total sales of the industry. It is reported that at present, the proportion of inverter refrigerators is about 10%, and according to the requirements of China's household refrigerator industry technology roadmap, the market share of inverter refrigerators in 2025 will reach 50%, and the market prospect is considerable. In particular, the new energy efficiency standard for refrigerators that began in October last year has accelerated the application of frequency conversion technology and helped increase the market share of inverter refrigerators. As China enters the era of quality consumption, large-volume products are increasingly sought after by consumers. According to China Yikang monitoring data, the growth rate of large-capacity products in the refrigerator market in 2017 was significant over the same period of last year: the proportion of retail sales of large-capacity refrigerators over 400L increased continuously, and the proportion under the line increased from 53.5% to 60.3%, and the retail sales increased by 6.7 percent year-on-year. %; At the same time, the online share also increased from 28.6% to 35.9%, an increase of 64.6% year-on-year. Gan Yonghe said that with the increase in the small family population of young users, the growing variety of food types, and the increasingly mature technology of refrigerators for cosmetics, health products, red wine, and other items, large capacity has become just needed in the refrigerator market. "Road Finding" Intelligently Creates Different Competitiveness As the core of the kitchen economy, smart refrigerators have always been high hopes. It is understood that in the past two years, the penetration rate of smart refrigerators has shown an upward trend, and the market is expected to expand rapidly. According to AVC monitoring data, the retail penetration rate of smart refrigerators reached 10.4% in 2016, an increase of 6.9% from the same period of last year. At the same time, according to its forecast, the retail volume of smart refrigerators in 2017 is expected to reach 1.98 million units, and double to 409 million units in 2020. Although the current intelligent refrigerator is in a chaotic state (WIFI is configured as an enterprise's choice of functional space occupation, and large-screen products are not well enough for demand excavation and landing), Li Qi, general manager of TCL White Goods Division, remains optimistic about its development. . He believes that refrigerator intelligence will go faster because the big direction is clear. "Once the ecological chain behind the 'image recognition' function is turned on, and at the same time 'access' to more intelligent ecosystem partners and participants, the road to intelligent refrigerators will be wider." In his view, the need for intelligence Experience a continuous trial and error development process. “The main direction of intelligent refrigerators is to combine with fresh food.” Li Hong, deputy general manager of Jinghong Refrigerator, told reporters. In addition, he said that in the future, the integration of eco-chain companies such as refrigerator hardware products and fresh service providers must be implemented by e-commerce platforms with considerable strength. “Because of the rough processing, cold chain, distribution of food, and control of food safety and ultimate user services, we need strong ecological chain resources as support.” "One-click shopping and customization will become the focus of the 'refrigerator + fresh' landing." Gan Yonghe said that the smart refrigerator will play the role of a nutrition steward in the future. It will use the user's habits, medical reports, etc. The situation provides users with accurate personalized services. Faced with the pitfalls of some home appliance smart products, “Simple and poor experience”, a person in charge of the Siemens refrigerator stated that the premise of the intelligent transformation of refrigerator products is consumer-centered, and it is very convenient for users to operate without additional operations. Achieve food identification and management. A refrigerator worker working on the production line As we all know, smart home appliances in the process of promotion, in addition to technology development and product landing problems, information security, privacy leakage is also a roadblock. How should the refrigerator companies deal with network security risks such as WIFI loopholes on the road to intelligence? Li Qi believes that the best solution is to cooperate with Internet companies, "because they have a greater advantage in solving the complete network problem." Indeed, cross-border cooperation and group warm-up is a good way to achieve a win-win situation. On May 26th, the refrigerator industry will also usher in a grand gathering of companies to seek warmth and conspiracy: The 2017 China Refrigerator Industry sponsored by the China Household Electrical Appliances Association and the Information Resource Development Department of the National Information Center and hosted by China National Grid The summit forum will be held in Beijing. At that time, representatives of mainstream companies in the industry will discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the refrigerator industry in more detail. Real estate market adjustments, product structure upgrades, new energy efficiency standards, network information security, and channel changes will become the topics of this forum. Hot spot. In fact, in the face of the current depressed industrial development environment, various refrigerator companies have been seeking new breakthrough points and outlets. “The industry structure is firm and intensely competitive. To survive and to gain greater room for development, building differentiated competitiveness of products will be one of the ways out,” said a senior executive of a refrigerator company. When asked by heroes, when asked about where to force in the future, Li Wei said that TCL Refrigerator will focus on accurately grasping the differentiated needs of consumers and making products with its own characteristics and competitiveness. Wang Peng told reporters that in the future, products and operations must be made professionally, refined, and focused on differentiation. “But differentiation does not simply add a function, but rather changes the nature and status of the product, and at the same time it revolutionizes the concept of consumer spending.”

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