In the refrigerator market competition in 2018, it is likely that a "story reversal" will occur due to the change of law in the United States.
On January 12, Midea Refrigerators held the world premiere of 'Micro-Crystals One Week Fresh' Technology in Beijing. The original technology, together with the appearance of the newly born US-based Fridge Division 81 in Berlin, the new brand team , Are showing the United States to the outside world the new attitude of the refrigerator.
The new general manager of the United States Refrigerator Division, Berlin (left) and the China Household Electrical Network photo interview
Product structure upgrade to essence
'The market for Midea refrigerators in 2017 is the best year ever,' and it is clear that there is a lot of joy in this regard, including Berlin.
According to the data provided by Orvite Cloud, from January to November 2017, Midea's refrigerator sales increased 28.6% YoY, sales growth hit a new five-year high, the domestic market share ranks second, and export sales have successfully defend the industry champions.
According to Berlin, the U.S. refrigerator sales grew more than 20% last year, which is a conservative figure. The overall scale of domestic and foreign sales is over 15 billion.
As of the end of November 2017, the offline market of refrigerators reached 65.55 billion yuan, down 4.1% from the same period of previous year. The online scale was 21.25 billion yuan, up 40.6% over the same period of last year. The performance of Midea refrigerators outperformed the broader market .
What is the driving force for growth? 'Mainly the average price changes brought by the upgrading of product structure', Berlin told reporters last year, the division is more to do their own product inventory optimization and promotion of product structure.
According to Aowei cloud network monitoring data, the number of mid-range and high-end products such as fridge-headed four-door and swing-on doors in 2017 was 41.4% higher than that of the same period of last year. The average price of Midea products increased 21% YoY, much higher than the industry average.
'2017 Why we are going to have this growth is not how aggressive my sales policies are. Instead, we really do not participate in those excessive price competitions, and we take back the energy and resources to make the product better. We have invested tens of millions of people to reform molds and upgrade equipment, but did not cause our entire operation to be bad. '
In fact, for all the home appliance enterprises including the refrigerator enterprises, the challenges they face from the external environment in 2017 are mainly reflected in the cost pressure brought by the sharp price hikes of raw materials and the higher consumption upgrade Quality needs.
'We think that using the price competition in the past to grab other people will cause a very big rebound', Berlin admits the pressure brought by the soaring raw materials in 2017 and the beauty of the refrigerator is also inevitable .In optimizing product structure, upgrade the terminal image, plus A series of large-scale high-end products return to the nature of the business restructuring, the United States refrigerator in the second quarter of last year returned to growth.
Berlin believes that the traditional refrigerator can not meet the needs of consumers to upgrade, 2017 is the industry from pure price competition to technology and quality competition in the first year.
Unique differentiated technology as a weapon
US refrigerator released in the New Year's 'microcrystalline a week fresh' technology is also a technical transformation of its appearance with the current industry in a variety of preservation techniques vary, the United States refrigerator reverse thinking to interpret the preservation, with a focus on fresh meat Its own changes, while the traditional preservation technology more focused on the purpose of rapid freezing.
According to the introduction of Jiangnan, head of the US refrigerator product planning department, the technology of 'fresh one-week microcrystal' is the anti-freezing law of intelligent cooling, 'independent microcrystalline tank, wavy three-dimensional air duct, , So that the meat ingredients both 'chilled not frozen, ready-cut fresh meat' and 'long-term preservation of the week, nutrition is not lost' the desired effect.
Experienced the popularity of air-cooled and variable frequency, the current technological upgrading of the refrigerator has returned to the essence of preservation. Looking around the refrigerator preservation market, fresh-keeping technology iteration has become a new battlefield. Consumers for the refrigerator preservation requirements are getting higher and higher, with each Brand preservation technology competing release, 2018 will be a battle for fresh technology, who mastered the forefront of preservation technology may have mastered the high-end market stepping stone.
Of course, the United States in 2018, the refrigerator is technically not limited to 'microcrystal a week fresh', Berlin said that in the past because of cost considerations of some of the technology, the United States will now boldly use the refrigerator on the product, there will be a large number of 2018 technology products released, these Technology is the result of years of profound knowledge of the release.
It is obvious that the beauty of the refrigerator in the technical presentation of the performance of a differentiated model, which is different from the past changes.
'In the past, we developed products more from an industry perspective, from the distribution of the entire industry to fill or upgrade the product, if today also follow this line of thinking, product homogeneity may be higher and higher', Berlin explained to reporters 'We are now changing our thinking. It is really starting from the pain points of consumers.'
'We now have a research and development team of a hundred people, half of them in Hefei, Shanghai, half of the previous development is in the laboratory, previously only concerned about the refrigerator refrigeration, and now we are more concerned about the user's entire use of the scene, from the purchase to storage. About 300 user interviews.We will user interviews as the source of our product development, rather than what others we have to do the same or better than it.Not only the Chinese market, the global platform, we should There are some, who can learn? Only self-breakthrough.
'The traditional transformation of the manufacturing industry to follow the fundamental nature and basic laws of business, there is no ability to make money and profitability, there is no ability to generate cash flow, will never be converted, in the final analysis nothing less than three directions: to seek new cost advantages and train The establishment of the ability to differentiate, as well as the transformation and upgrading between industries. 'Just the day after the release of Midea Refrigerator Technology, Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group, made such a view on' 2018 China Manufacturing Forum ' The best way to explain.