Umi's group, which once had a good relationship with Xiaomi, recently filed a patent dispute with Xiaomi's ecological chain company, Yunmi, on AWE. Letv once joined Leica, the country’s largest TV brand, and now enjoys the end of Levision. From these perspectives, traditional home appliance companies and It seems that the cooperation of Internet companies is not very good.
Media reports at the AWE (China Household Electrical Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo) 2018 exhibition site, Yunmi, a subsidiary of Xiaomi's eco-chain company, is being “played in the hall” by the United States. This product is accused of infringing US patent rights. survey.
It is difficult for traditional household appliance enterprises and Internet companies to have good results
The advantage of Internet companies is that they are good at Internet marketing and can help traditional home appliance companies to rapidly increase their online channels and enhance their brand influence. This has become an opportunity for traditional household appliance companies and Internet companies to hold hands. At the time, this seems to be beneficial to both parties.
Cooperation between Millet and the United States can help the United States to rapidly expand the online market. Xiaomi can therefore obtain more abundant data and users; LeTV and TCL's cooperation In addition to these factors, LeTV also hopes to obtain TCL's Huaxing Optoelectronics in panel resources. On the support, LeTV was ranked among the top four domestically produced TVs at the time, which had a strong demand for the panel, and the global TV panel appeared to be in tight supply.
Obviously, traditional home appliance brand enterprises are different from ODM companies. They do not want their destiny to be controlled by Internet companies. The net profit margin of ODM companies is too low. The net profit rate of Foxconn, the world’s largest foundry, is less than 4% and it’s The company is developing its own brand business and hopes to increase its profit margin. Similarly, for Internet companies, they originally wanted to use the abundant resources owned by traditional household electrical appliance companies instead of becoming supporting actors. This led to difficulties for both parties to cooperate in depth.
Millet's cooperation with the United States has invested in nearly 90 start-up companies, and has formed a competitive relationship with the United States in the fields of household appliances and air-conditioning. The second air-conditioner launched by Xiaomi last year was not replaced by the United States but Changhong. It hopes to achieve excellent results in these industries, such as mobile phone business, which has led to a weakening or even splitting of the cooperation between the two parties.
Interestingly, Alibaba, the largest e-commerce company in China, has reached a close cooperative relationship with Suning, the largest home appliance chain company. In 2015, Suning subscribed for 27.8 million shares of Alibaba’s newly issued shares and held a 1.09% stake in Alibaba. Ali took Suning's non-public offering of shares for approximately 28.3 billion to obtain a 19.99% stake in the latter, becoming the second largest shareholder of Suning. However, Suning has recently sold about one-fifth of its shares held by Alibaba, and It shows that its influence on Ali is too small, which shows that the relationship between the two parties is subtle, which also shows the differences between the traditional home appliance retail companies and e-commerce companies.
Appliance Enterprises Develop Internet Business Independently
In the event of disagreement between home appliance companies and Internet companies, they began to aggressively enter the Internet market. Midea Air Conditioning's share of the air conditioner market is already third, and it has also begun to actively enter the smart home market, hoping to bring its own small appliances, Air conditioners, ice wash and other products are integrated to form their own data link instead of millet to provide internet services.
TCL, which cooperates with LeTV, has independently developed its own content platform instead of using LeTV's content platform. In addition, traditional TV companies such as Skyworth have established their own content platforms. It is clear that these powerful home appliance brand enterprises are actively developing their own Internet. Business does not want to be controlled by Internet companies.
Household appliance companies develop Internet business because they have more solid accumulation in the home appliance industry, and the Internet business lacks a threshold. In contrast, Internet companies have to overcome certain thresholds when they enter traditional industries, such as the lack of panel support for the development of LeTV. A home appliance company has patented its competitors to show that they are setting patent thresholds with patents to prevent Internet companies from quickly eroding their market share.
The rapid development of Internet companies and the support of their organizations have a lot to do. Xiaomi’s name of being the first domestically-produced and the third-largest mobile phone brand in the world from its establishment until the third quarter of 2014 was inseparable from the support of investment institutions. All of them are financing; after LeScore has experienced funding problems, investment institutions have become cautious about investing in Internet companies; LeTV's rapid decline in TV industry has given traditional home appliance companies confidence to strengthen their determination to independently develop their Internet business.
In the future, it will be even more difficult for Internet companies to compete with traditional industries. The chances of cooperation between the two companies will be even smaller. Of course, from the current perspective, it is not easy for traditional home appliance companies to develop their own Internet business. Home appliance companies rarely see successful examples.