Refrigerator industry declines

In the overall downturn of the economy and continuous real estate regulation, the refrigerator industry is particularly affected by the withdrawal of subsidies such as trade-in, home appliances, and rural areas. It ended the rapid growth of previous years and began to drop significantly since the second half of last year. The trend continued until this year, the overall sales of the refrigerator market fell sharply. It is also because the decline in the prosperity of the industry has prompted the domestic refrigerator companies to accelerate the pace of adjustment to the high-end transition.

The decline in the prosperity of the refrigerator industry experienced three years of rapid development. The refrigerator industry began to drop significantly in the second half of 2011. According to the monitoring data of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, the total sales volume in the domestic market in 2011 was about 45 million units, compared with the previous year. The boom was relatively stagnant, and the monitoring system of the home appliance market in key cities of the National Information Center also showed that in 2011, the sales volume of refrigerators in key cities was approximately 23.35 million units, an increase of only 1.5% year-on-year. This wave of downward trend has continued to affect this year, the first quarter refrigerator sales had a sharp decline, the amount of key cities, the amount of decline exceeded 30%, and the start is unfavorable.

The reason is that in addition to the economic downturn and real estate regulation, the refrigerator industry is particularly affected by the withdrawal of policies. The trade-in policy to overdraw some of the market's replacement demand in advance, according to data from Gome, the trade-in of new products in 2011 accounted for 30% of the total sales in the primary market. Refrigerators are the most popular products in home appliances to the countryside. The policy of home appliances to rural areas has overdrawn the needs of the rural market. As the first pilot "three provinces and one city" policy expired, the demand for refrigerators fell sharply.

The overall situation of the refrigerator industry this year is not optimistic. According to the industry online data, from January to September, the sales volume in the refrigerators was 47.541 million units, a decrease of 3.8% year-on-year. The data from Zhong Yikang show that, from January to August, the sales volume of refrigerators in the retail terminal market was 23.51 million units, with sales of approximately 53.1 billion yuan, down 13.4% and 13% respectively year-on-year. Gome's statistics also show that refrigerator sales in the Gome retail system fell by 5% from January to October.

The decline in the prosperity of enterprises in accelerating the transformation of high-end industries has also prompted the domestic refrigerator companies to accelerate the transformation and upgrading, adjust the industrial structure, and the domestic refrigerator industry has entered an adjustment period. Wang Jianguo, president of Midea’s refrigerator business division, said that Midea began its strategic transformation in the second half of 2011 and gave up its previous strategic goal of pursuing market share. Instead, it began to strongly improve its product mix, raise its gross profit margin, pursue product quality and reliability, and improve energy efficiency. , improve product quality. The effect of the adjustment began to appear in the second half of the year. According to Midea's semi-annual report, the refrigerator business revenue and net profit fell by 65.3% and 5.37% year-on-year in the first half of the year, respectively, and the refrigerator revenue growth rate has been positive in October. Hisense and Kelon also completed the integration of production and sales in the first half of the year, integrating the production and sales platform of Hisense and Rongsheng refrigerators, and the market response has been accelerated. According to Gan Yonghe, vice president of Hisense Kelon, it is expected that the total sales of Hisense and Rongsheng refrigerators will increase by more than 10% for the full year. Haier also adjusted the products for the 3rd and 4th markets, and completed the switch from home appliances to rural areas to energy-saving and people-friendly policies. It is expected that the annual market share will exceed 30%.

In the wave of transformation and adjustment of refrigerator companies, domestic refrigerator companies have shifted to the high-end and increased the proportion of high-end and high-end products, changing the traditional impression that the “foreign brands take the high-end, local brands engage in the low-end” and increase the middle-to-high end Product investment. Haier high-end terminal brand Casa Di this year through the national tour exhibition and other forms to increase marketing efforts, recently Meiling cost 730 million yuan to build a high-end product line Athena refrigerator project completed and put into production, each year can produce 200 million units more than 300L high-volume luxury refrigerator. Hisense Kelon also builds a new refrigerator base in Qingdao. In the first phase, it will add 1.9 million units of annual production capacity.

At present, the domestic high-end refrigerator consumer market has formed a situation where high-end brands such as Haier Casa Imperial, Midea Fandi, and Meiling Athena compete. The high-end products of domestic brands quickly grab market share at more affordable prices, and also drive down foreign brands that have occupied a major share of the high-end market. This has also played a role in promoting the popularity of high-end refrigerators. Coupled with the implementation of a new round of energy-saving products to benefit the people's projects that began in June of this year, the promotion of energy-saving products in high-end refrigerators has been further expanded.

Statistics show that in the primary market, refrigerators with more than 220L and more than 500L refrigerators have become the mainstream of consumption. This year, the sales volume of Sanmen and door-to-door refrigerators has increased from 50% last year to more than 65%, and the sales share of multi-door refrigerators has continued to increase steadily. The traditional double-door refrigerator sales share will be compressed to less than 25%. At present, the proportion of domestic and domestic high-end refrigerator products has also been significantly improved. According to Gan Yonghe introduced Hisense and Rong sound brands of refrigerator products, sales of three or more products have accounted for more than 50%. Data from the United States also shows that sales of its three or more products accounted for 50% of total sales, which was a significant increase from 20% in the same period in 2011. The sales volume of Meiling's three or more products exceeded 30%.