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Marketing upgrades, product upgrades, concept upgrades-the export of major home appliances overseas has achieved outstanding results

According to data from the General Administration of Customs, from January to March this year, China's total export of household appliances was 147.94 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 63.4%. China's home appliances going overseas is ushering in a new period of rapid growth, further consolidating its position as the world's home appliance production center. How do traditional home appliance brands gain overseas market recognition in the fierce competition? What is the secret behind high growth? What challenges will the future development face?

Marketing and product go hand in hand

“Looking at the logos of Chinese brands surrounding the stadium is refreshing and refreshing!” said Xiao Fan, a Beijing fan who stayed up late to watch the European Cup and paid great attention to major international sports events. “I used to see Japanese and Korean brands. Now we have more brands."

The well-known home appliance brand Hisense is the official global partner of Euro 2020. Prior to this, Hisense also named one of the three major stadiums of the Australian Open, "Hisense Stadium" (later renamed "Melbourne Stadium"), which once witnessed the undefeated record of Chinese tennis star Li Na here.

"Sponsoring top events expresses Hisense's firm determination to become a world-class brand." said Jia Shaoqian, President of Hisense Group.

In 2016, Hisense became the first Chinese sponsor of the European Cup. Ding Minghao, the former vice president of operations at Blooming Sports, once commented: "With the endorsement of a top-level event like the European Cup, it can save sponsor brands 5-8 years to convince overseas consumers. time."

The facts confirm this statement. According to data, Hisense’s overseas revenue in 2020 is 54.8 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 40% of the group’s total revenue. This year’s European market revenue has surged by 113% year-on-year. Among them, key markets such as Poland and France have increased by more than 355% and 185% respectively.

"The cooperation with major international sports events has indeed rapidly increased the brand's international recognition, which is also a common marketing method for exploring overseas markets." Zhou Nan, Secretary-General of the Home Appliances Branch of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said in an interview with our reporter. As a traditional color TV giant, Hisense is particularly suitable for hand-in-hand with sports events. Relying on several years of hard work in this field, Hisense color TV overseas own brand rate is close to 100%."

Brands such as Gree and Midea are not far behind and have won bids in multiple international stadiums, while home appliance brands such as TCL, Meiling, and Vantage have joined hands with athletes or teams with international influence to integrate into the larger international market and more through sports. Diverse cultures.

Improving brand awareness is only the first step. Whether the product can truly satisfy the appetite of overseas consumers in Shanghai is even more critical.

The air humidity in the UK is relatively high, and consumers have more urgent demands for the drying function of washing machines. To this end, Hisense adjusted the rotation speed of the drying washing machine on the local market from the conventional 1200 rpm to 1400 rpm, thus speeding up the clothes drying time.

Haier also knows the needs of overseas users very well. In the Pakistani market, every important festival such as Eid al-Adha, there is a large amount of meat that needs to be stored. Haier has developed a refrigerator with a volume of 519 liters, which can hold up to 12 sheep; Russian users prefer separate storage of ingredients, and Haier owns refrigerators in the local market. With a unique four-drawer design, and with reference to the characteristics of local users who are tall and accustomed to snacks, a large-capacity refrigerator with a height of 2 meters has been developed.

"The global home appliance market is very complicated. Each country has different tax policies, sales channels, customs and consumer preferences. Therefore, when entering different markets, we adopt different strategies and proceed in an orderly manner according to different stages. Zhang Qingfu, vice president of Haier Overseas Electrical Appliance Industry Co., Ltd., told reporters that in the first quarter of this year, Haier's overseas market sales increased by 24.6% year-on-year, and operating profit increased by 135%.

Intelligent leveraging the high-end market

With strong supply chain advantages, Chinese home appliance brands can quickly deploy globally in the field of manufacturing. However, in the European and American markets, local brands still have high user loyalty. If they want to enhance the voice of Chinese brands, they must win the high-end market.

"Chinese home appliance brands have cost-effective advantages, but cost-effectiveness is not synonymous with low-end and low-quality." Guan Chong, associate professor of marketing at Singapore's Xinyue University of Social Sciences, told reporters.

"There are two paths to high-end roads. One is to lead product development trends through breakthroughs in design, energy conservation, and structure, and to increase the added value of the brand; the other is technological innovation, such as intelligent transformation to increase the technical added value of products." Zhou Nan said "The latter provides Chinese brands with opportunities for new tracks and corners to overtake in the high-end market for Chinese brands. In the digital and intelligent market, domestic brands have almost the same starting time as famous international brands, and they even have certain advantages."

"In recent years, global households have paid more and more attention to smart home appliances, but there is no obvious leading brand in this market. This is an opportunity for Chinese home appliance companies to deploy overseas markets." Guan Chong said.

While cutting into the local market faster through overseas mergers and acquisitions, Chinese home appliance companies are actively exploring the direction of intelligence and digitization, knocking on the door of the high-end market with excellent products.

In June 2019, "Qingdao Haier" was renamed "Haier Smart Home", starting a global ecological brand layout. In the European market, Haier launched the hOn App, which allows users to control smart home appliances of multiple brands under Haier. In addition to common online control, product interconnection and other functions, it also provides smart experiences in different scenarios. For example, by uploading clothes photos, the washing machine can determine the fabric of the clothes and recommend matching washing modes; connected to kitchen appliances, it can also Real-time understanding of the baking process of food; scanning wine labels can intelligently identify basic information such as year, producing area, grade, and variety.

Less than a year after being online, the number of hOn users has exceeded 3 million. In addition to its products, the platform has also reached cooperation with Google and Amazon to optimize its intelligent functions such as voice interaction. "Leveraging on the advantages of ecological scenarios, Haier's high-end product revenue increased by more than 40% in the first quarter of this year." Zhang Qingfu said.

TCL has promoted the AIxIoT (a full-scenario open architecture that combines artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things) strategy from 2019 to create a home Internet of Things with smart TV as the core, integrates into Google, Amazon and other artificial intelligence ecosystems, and realizes a variety of content and scenarios. Intelligent connection.

Facing the challenge of overseas development

According to data from the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, the key export markets for home appliances have been on the rise from January to March this year, maintaining growth in 80% of the markets, and the export scale has doubled in nearly 50 countries. Especially in Europe and North America, exports increased by 72.7% and 114.3% respectively over the same period last year.

The influence of Chinese home appliance brands in the world market is growing. However, in the face of soaring raw materials caused by fluctuations in the global supply chain, supply crises caused by the lack of smart chips, and industrial transfers caused by trade barriers in some countries, opening up overseas markets still faces many challenges, and building overseas independent brands is the key to solving the problem.

"The current global home appliance market competition is still brand competition." Talking about the future overseas development of China's home appliances, Zhou Nan said, "On the one hand, Chinese companies must seize the export growth window brought by the epidemic and accelerate the construction of overseas independent brands; On the one hand, it is necessary to innovate the marketing model. Compared with the traditional foreign trade model with high cost and multiple links, cross-border e-commerce provides new channels for Chinese home appliance brands to go overseas with higher efficiency and lower cost. In the future, as overseas home appliance consumption continues to increase Moving to online, more Chinese home appliances with rich functions and outstanding cost-effective advantages are expected to enjoy channel dividends and accelerate the expansion of overseas markets."

Guan Chong believes that home appliance companies should continue to increase investment in their own brands, pay attention to the individual needs of consumers, and combine brand concepts with a better life.

For Haier, brand philosophy and values are more important than growth rate and scale. "The overall goal of Haier's overseas market is high-end brand creation, scene brand breakthroughs and ecological brand landing. Haier Zhijia adheres to the path of independent brands. Since this year, the proportion of overseas revenue has reached 49%, almost all from its own brands." Zhang Qingfu Said.

Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL Industry, said that TCL will further deepen strategic cooperation with overseas Internet business partners, improve and integrate domestic and foreign resources, establish a global Internet business user system, and continue to improve corporate profitability.

At the end of 2020, another home appliance giant Midea upgraded its strategic main axis to "leading technology, direct user access, digital intelligence driven, and global breakthrough." Midea’s international president Wang Jianguo said that this breakthrough specifically refers to the top five in Japan, the United States, Brazil, Germany and ASEAN. The strategic market focuses on all-round breakthroughs in areas such as innovative product development, digital marketing, logistics after-sales capability building, brand investment, and manufacturing layout.

Looking at the world, China's home appliance industry is striving to innovate in core technologies and intelligent transformation with a broader pattern.