For over a decade, the domestic air-conditioning market has not given the suitable survival and development environment for small and medium-sized brands as it has now. At least in the nearly ten years before 2015, few new brands have emerged. The 2016 and 2017 domestic air-conditioning markets The big outbreak brought rich external opportunities to small and medium-sized brands. Therefore, in 2018, a large number of cutting-edge brands entered the mainstream vision of the air-conditioning industry.
March is the last month of this season's off-season and is also a critical time for the launch of the high season market. Within this month, a large number of small and medium-sized brands held dealer conferences. Shuanglu, Shangling, Hankang’s Landscape, New The channel summits of companies such as Yingyan, Moon Rabbit, Yingtian, etc. have all become very popular. Collecting funds and allowing channels to stock up before the peak season is a method that the industry has always used, but no matter how effective the conference is, the real test is. Small and medium-sized brands have not yet arrived.
Livable belts for small and medium-sized brands
The overall demand for the domestic air-conditioning market is large enough. However, the huge market space may not allow the long-term survival and development of small and medium-sized brands. In recent years, a large number of small and medium-sized brands have shown strong growth momentum. Besides the market itself, Some important direct reasons.
The high pricing strategy of leading brands represented by Gree, Midea, Haier, etc. gave the small and medium-sized brands a broad living space. Large enterprises have released low-end demand areas for improvement of profits, efficiency, and management quality. With competitive prices and flexible channel strategies, we have found a living soil in the 3rd and 4th markets. Especially under the pressure of destocking in previous years, many companies adjusted the production and sales model, and the market appeared within a certain period of time. The situation of insufficiency of supply has provided abundant resources for the production and sales of small and medium-sized brands.
On the other hand, while the demand in the air-conditioning market is showing high growth, the market conditions of household appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines, color TVs, etc. are not satisfactory, they have been in a state of low embarrassment, and the ecological environment of these industries is The air-conditioning market is relatively poor and the profitability rate is low. Many home appliance manufacturing companies have entered the air-conditioning sector, and the original channel operators in the ice-washing industry also concentrated their funds on the air-conditioning market.
In this respect, rich channel resources are the livability zone for small and medium-sized brands. If the market broke out rapidly within the previous two years, the products of small and medium-sized brands would make up for the insufficient production capacity of the mainstream and leading brands. Then enter 2018. After the year, the small and medium-sized brands achieved rapid growth in shipment volume in a channel-oriented model.
Some mainstream air-conditioning manufacturers have also released pressure on their own production capacity. This has enabled a large number of small and medium-sized brands to rapidly realize the supply of products in batches and to cut into the market and industry with light asset models. This is one of the reasons why small and medium-sized brands can emerge like mushrooms. However, the increase in shipments does not mean that small and medium-sized brands can solve long-term development problems once and for all. The time for truly testing small and medium-sized brands has not come yet.
Short-term competitive pressures are concentrated in high season
The market is always in a dynamic development process. When the scale of a company grows to a certain extent, the competitors faced by it, the resources it needs to pay for products, promotion, channels, and after-sales services are different from those in the past. Through the great development of the past two years, the competitive pressures faced by many small and medium-sized brands this year have also been greatly improved.
When small and medium-sized brands seek greater space for growth, the competitive strategies of leading and mainstream brands and sales methods are also undergoing changes. On the one hand, big brands have strengthened their depth of channels, and have gained control over the bottom markets of the 4th and 5th levels. On the other hand, mainstream and leading brands will not have the contradiction of lack of production capacity in the past year or so in the past year, and they will continue to pursue terminal guidance. In addition to diligent sales, they also appropriately expand the pressure on channels. .
It is worth mentioning that in order to expand its coverage of high-end, low-end demand areas, many big brands have increased their product types for the low-end market, and some even directly launched brands that compete in the low-end market. From the year of 2018 onwards, it will not only have to face the competition from similar companies, but it will also have to stifle with many big brands on the market.
More importantly, whether or not the high-growth market in the peak season this year is the same as in the past two years is still unknown. After the market demand has been digested before, the demand for freshmen is scarce, and the demand for product replacement is mainly concentrated. In leading and mainstream brands.
From the perspective of the existing shipment status of the domestic air-conditioning market, the entire industry is still in a high-growth trend, but the sales volume and sales volume of the retail terminal and engineering machine market are not in synch with the high growth in the same period. The channel inventory in the domestic market is At the end of March, it was about 45 million units. At this time last year, the contradiction between supply and demand was in short supply, but now it is manifested as serious oversupply, and a huge amount of inventory will stimulate competition. If the market appears cool during the peak season, then the amount of inventory A further backlog is inevitable. It does not even rule out extremes. A large area of aggressive price competition appears.
Domestic air-conditioning market faces reshuffle
The entry and exit of brands is a normal phenomenon in the development of the industry, especially in areas where the air-conditioning industry needs large capital operations and where there are short-term game opportunities. Brands are more frequent in and out. Over the past 30 years of development, corpses have been used. To describe the evolution of air-conditioning brand pattern is not excessive.
Compared with the previous brand boom period, the existence of a certain brand in the current pattern is obviously worth exploring. Such brand is a considerable part of the group. Panasonic has become the object of this group's imitative focus, through a few simple English words. The change of the letter, with a new brand name, has played a very effective role.
A large number of 'rubbing balls' brands do not have their own independent manufacturing plants, R&D systems and brand building plans, and even there are many controversial places in the creation of product quality, with very low configurations and prices close to the cost line. 4. The market strategy of some companies is obviously a short-term behavior, and consumers' rights and interests cannot be effectively guaranteed.
With the strengthening of enforcement of intellectual property laws and regulations, and the regulation of market competition order by industrial policies, the foundation for the survival of the “Bianbianqi” brand will be shaken. Furthermore, the market’s invisible hand itself will adjust the brand pattern to the survival of the fittest. In the absence of the long-term development of the brand, there is no appropriate product quality system and technology research and development platform, a large number of brands out of the market is only a matter of time.
Of course, there are also some brands that stand out in this wave of development. They often spare no effort in investing in product competitiveness, have complete plans for brand image enhancement, and have long-term aspirations in technology research and development, in channels and business. A brand or company with a sound system of model construction will have a more long-term future.
What's more, under the escalation of consumption and the general trend, users' awareness of products has been continuously improved, and the demand groups themselves are moving in the direction of youthfulness. Many small and medium-sized air-conditioning companies are precisely lacking in these areas.
