The home appliance market is booming with both supply and sales, and emerging categories are popular

Home appliances are an important area for boosting consumption. Recently, home appliance manufacturers have seized the opportunity of the Spring Festival and launched New Year's goods festival activities to innovate supply to better meet consumer demand, stimulate market consumption enthusiasm through marketing innovation, promote the exchange of old appliances for new ones, and accelerate the popularization of emerging home appliances.

The heat of exchanging old for new is high

On the fifth day of the first lunar month, Wu Limei, a resident of Haidian District in Beijing, went to a home appliance store to purchase a branded washing and drying integrated machine. This product has a drying and sterilization function, as well as a washing program suitable for assault suits, which perfectly meets the needs of Wu Limei and her wife for outdoor sports and caring for their children's health. By participating in the trade in activity, she enjoyed a manufacturer subsidy of 400 yuan, as well as worry free services such as new machine installation and old machine dismantling.

During the Spring Festival, Suning.com's Beijing Xihongmen Huiju store decorated with lights and decorations, creating a festive atmosphere. "Before the Spring Festival, there were several small peaks in home appliance sales, and the daily turnover of the store could reach one million yuan." Li Ming, the deputy store manager of the store, said that Suning.com has continued to carry out discount activities such as exchanging old for new and offering discounts on home appliance purchases. Recently, customers and transaction amounts in the store have gradually increased.

On February 7th, Suning.com released pre holiday consumption data, showing that since the launch of the New Year's Goods Festival on January 5th, Suning.com has seen a year-on-year increase of 206% in customer flow in its nationwide stores, and a year-on-year increase of 153% in the number of orders for exchanging old appliances for new ones.

Many consumers choose to update and upgrade their household appliances before the Spring Festival. Refrigerators, washing machines, and color televisions are popular categories for exchanging old for new. Upgraded products with large dimensions, large capacity, and multiple functions are particularly popular. The sales of products such as 85 inch and above large screen color TVs, double door refrigerators, and washing and drying sets increased by 101%, 136%, and 103% month on month, respectively.

Home appliance manufacturers focus on user needs and make precise efforts. Haier Smart Home's original refrigerator full space preservation technology extends the shelf life of ingredients and dispels consumer concerns about not being able to store New Year's goods. Hisense actively promotes large screen products such as 100 inch, 110 inch, and 120 inch foldable laser TVs L5K. Its laser TV "screen foldable" technology solves the problem of large-sized TV entering households, providing convenience for more families to watch large screens.

Currently, the traditional home appliance market has entered the stock stage. In 2023, the total number of major categories of household appliances exceeded 3 billion units, with over 100 units of air conditioning, refrigerators, and televisions per 100 households. Some household appliances have been in use for a long time, and there is a great demand and potential for replacement. At the same time, the trade in of household appliances and other consumer goods is a massive system project that requires collaborative linkage between production, supply and marketing, upstream and downstream, government, enterprises, and the public, as well as online and offline collaboration.

The Ministry of Commerce and nine other departments recently issued the "Guidelines for the Typical Construction of a Sound Recycling System for Recycled Resources such as Waste Household Appliances and Furniture", which proposes to cultivate a group of typical cities and enterprises in the recycling system of waste household appliances and furniture nationwide by 2025. The national recycling volume of waste household appliances and furniture has increased by more than 15% compared to 2023, and the standardized recycling level of waste household appliances and furniture has significantly improved.

Xu Dongsheng, Vice Chairman of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, stated that "the new policy is an important measure to break through consumption bottlenecks and promote the exchange of old appliances for new ones. We will quickly make up for the shortcomings in infrastructure, and the circulation of the household appliance industry will become more smooth.".

Emerging categories are popular

"We plan to get married after the Chinese New Year. Our new house not only needs traditional household appliances, but also needs to purchase some trendy appliances, such as dishwashers and robotic vacuum cleaners." Couples Wang Pang and Liu Huizhi, who returned from other places to Jianhu County, Yancheng, Jiangsu for the Chinese New Year, said that when buying appliances, it depends on quality, appearance, and cost-effectiveness. Green and intelligent products are the first choice.

"Washing and drying all-in-one machines, intelligent large screen color televisions, water purifiers, dishwashers, and floor sweepers are becoming the top five new items for county and town consumers." Cui Jiansheng, the head of Suning Yigou Retail Cloud Store in Jianhu Building, Yancheng, told reporters that young people are more interested in the new trend of high-end home appliances. In 2023, the "Double 11" store opened with sales exceeding 1 million yuan, and 40% of the total home appliance purchase orders.

Currently, the sales growth of emerging home appliance categories is good. Data shows that in 2023, the sales of floor scrubbers increased by 45%; The retail sales of dryers increased by 16.4%; The overall scale of dishwashers was 1.94 million units and 11.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.3% and 9.6%.

During the Spring Festival, smart floor scrubbers have become the preferred gift for more and more people visiting relatives and friends. The floor scrubber not only meets the efficient cleaning needs of households, but also symbolizes "removing old clothes and bringing joy to the new year".

The new product of the floor scrubber launched by Tianke is equipped with a ultra-thin body and multiple leading technologies, which can achieve floor to floor cleaning and is favored by consumers. "We predict that during the Spring Festival holiday, TikTok's offline sales will triple that of the same period last year," said Yin Peng, General Manager of TikTok Greater China

Marketing has new ideas

To tap into consumer potential, home appliance manufacturers are innovating their marketing methods and working together online and offline.

From January 4th to February 12th this year, Haier's "Beautiful China Year" campaign accumulated sales of 17.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%. It is reported that Haier stores organize technology assisted agriculture live broadcasts, reunion banquets and other activities, and also seize the trend of returning home to provide users with services such as bringing goods to the village, cleaning at home, and replacing old ones with new ones. The person in charge of Haier Zhijia China stated, "We also conducted live activities such as the New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve, and achieved precise 'planting' through interesting interactions such as evaluating 'C-level' New Year dishes, and then directed them to stores for conversion.".

Starting from February this year, Hisense has launched a home appliance replacement campaign for all categories of products such as color TVs and air conditioners. In terms of customer expansion and drainage, Hisense, guided by low-carbon and green, promoted the theme in the form of localized live broadcast and short video on the Tiktok platform. From February 1st to 13th, Hisense Laser TV's online sales increased by 305% year-on-year.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the cumulative main business revenue of the home appliance industry in China reached 1.84 trillion yuan last year, a year-on-year increase of 7%; The profit was 156.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.1%.

Looking ahead to 2024, Xu Dongsheng stated that China's home appliance enterprises have adhered to technological innovation, explored user needs, and improved global business levels for many years, with strong industrial resilience. He believes that this year, the home appliance industry will continue to maintain stable growth and contribute to further driving domestic consumption.