Opportunities and challenges faced by small household appliances industry

The year 2022 is drawing to a close, and a new year is coming, followed by the Spring Festival, which represents the past and the coming of the new year. As an economic barometer, the home appliance industry will also usher in a grand promotion moment. As the small household appliance industry with the most obvious market fluctuation since the outbreak of the epidemic, it will also tend to develop steadily after big ups and downs. The promotion festival in the Spring Festival is also a good time for small household appliances to be shipped.

In fact, for the small household appliance industry, the development in the past three years can be described as "wind and water rise", and of course, it has also experienced a soul stirring experience. At the beginning of the epidemic, the online market size of small household appliances will reach 36.6 billion yuan in 2020, with a year-on-year growth of 9.4%. However, only one year later, small household appliances began to decline. In the first half of 2021, the retail sales of small household appliances totaled 25.08 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.6%.

When the time comes to the first quarter of 2022, the total data pushed by AVC shows that in the first quarter of 2022, the retail volume of small household appliances in China will exceed 5 million, reaching 51.89 million, down 18.9% year on year. It is not difficult to find that after the peak in 2020, the small household appliance market has been in a downturn due to many factors.

Why did the small household appliance industry plummet after the boom? I think there are three points:

1、 The upsurge of "home economy" has subsided, and the long-term home life has given birth to the hot "home economy". The demand for food, health, kitchen and personal care small appliances has been very high in a short time, which has driven the hot market of small appliances.

2、 The lazy economy has driven the small home appliance market to be hot. With the growth of the Internet, "Generation Z" is more pursuing the personality and quality of products. Under the "lazy economy", clean small home appliances represented by floor sweeping robots and floor washers are gradually becoming popular.

3、 Consumers return to reason. In the post epidemic era, people's lives are gradually on the right track, and the demand for small household appliances is not unnecessary, which naturally affects the transaction at the terminal.

In the face of the increasingly depressed small appliance market, where are the opportunities and challenges for the small appliance industry in the future? The answer can be found in the White Paper on 2022 Global Small Appliance Trend Insight (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper") released recently.

The White Paper pointed out that the per capita consumption of small household appliances in the world has reached the threshold of US $30, and the per capita consumption of developed countries can reach 1.5-2 times that of developing countries. As the largest household appliance market in the world, the Asia Pacific region is full of opportunities, and China's small household appliance market is also full of opportunities.

Data shows that the number of small household appliances owned by Chinese households is only 9.5, while the number of small household appliances owned by American households is 31.5, ranking first in the world. The number of small household appliances in Britain, Australia, Germany and France is between 20-30, all at a high level. Compared with European and American countries, China still has a large space for development.

So, where are the opportunities for China's small household appliances industry? This means that only by grasping these trends can we seize the opportunities to achieve counter trend growth.

First of all, the healthy trend of small household appliances is becoming more and more obvious. Grasping the opportunity of healthy small household appliances can realize the renewal of products. In the post epidemic era, people's demand for health small household appliances is generally soaring, and many small household appliances pay more attention to people's health needs. For example, acarid remover, sterilizer, sweeping and dragging machine, air purifier, etc., these healthy small appliances will become one of the mainstream directions in the future.

Secondly, small homes are more intelligent. At the moment when the post-90s generation has gradually become the main consumer, more intelligent and lazy small household appliances are favored. For example, with intelligent programs, small kitchen appliances that can realize one click cooking, devices that can access ioT, and small appliances that can be controlled through mobile phones, intelligence will become one of the driving forces for the development of small appliances in the future.

Finally, the categories of small household appliances are more refined. There are more and more kinds of small household appliances, and they are becoming more and more refined. For example, there are floor moppers, floor sweepers, and mopping machines. The drinking fountains are also divided into health pots, coffee machines, milk tea machines, etc. The small household appliances are also becoming more refined with a wide variety of products.

Yang Fan, the founder of the People's Home Appliances Network and a senior media personage, said: "The market access threshold for small home appliances is relatively low, and the market demand is very broad. In addition to grasping the mainstream trend of intelligence, health and refinement, we should also play our imagination to create more innovative products, so as to capture the hearts of young consumers and achieve breakthrough and transformation."

It is estimated that by 2023, the market size of China's smart small appliances is expected to reach 192.4 billion yuan, with very optimistic prospects.