Recently, a message was swiped across the circle of friends in the home appliance industry. 'From July 1, the average import duty rate for household appliances such as washing machines and refrigerators fell from 20.5% to 8%.' The news triggered a wide range of industry Discussion: 'Implicit reductions in import tariffs on ice-washed products, will it affect China's high-end home appliance market', 'Customer tariff cuts, and impact on the competitive landscape of high-end ice-wash products in China'', 'Will imported ice-washed products meet after tariff reduction? A wave of price reductions has come to the fore... Although there have been many discussions, the focus has been on the 'high-end refrigerators'. Obviously, the high-end trend of refrigerators has been accepted by the masses, and this has led to a wave of high-end transformation in the industry.
Why is the high-end refrigerator faster?
First of all, from the perspective of the market, the refrigerator market has gradually moved toward the stock market, which is mainly based on replacement demand, after experiencing three popular policies, such as home appliances to the countryside. In the past few years, the development of the entire refrigerator industry has been extremely difficult. Since 2013, Since entering the policy downturn, refrigerator sales have been operating at a low level for five to six years. According to China Unicom's total data, the compound annual growth rate is only 1.3% from 2014 to 2017. Under the negative momentum, it has become the only driving force to push the market forward by improving product structure, promoting technology upgrading within the category, and increasing the proportion of high-end refrigerators to increase sales.
Secondly, from the consumer side, supply-side reforms have sounded the alarm for the development of China’s traditional home appliance industry. Supply and demand balance has become the country’s consistent upgrade of the industrial structure from top to bottom. The national policy is, in the industry’s terms, ultimately the people. The consumer demand has undergone a fundamental change. According to the 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory', the general consumer demand has evolved from the physiological and security needs of the subsistence period to the well-off society, respecting the demand. The 19th National Congress report clearly stated that 'China has We have reached the final stage of the construction of a well-to-do society in an all-round way. In other words, the current demand for 'society' and 'respect' has become the mainstream consumer demand. The so-called social demand is focused on the 'social' attribute. This is the 'shared economy', ' Reasons for the rapid emergence of social e-commerce and other models. As far as respect for demand, it refers to people's self-esteem and external identity. Today’s era is the era of the rise of 'self’ and 'little circle culture'. Big demand has also become the cradle of high-end refrigerators.
In terms of consumer demand for refrigerator products, from the two doors that satisfy the basic preservation function, the three-door refrigerators, to multi-gates with refined storage, the door-to-door refrigerators, and the gradual temperature evolution from single temperature zones to multiple temperatures. The district’s independent precise temperature control, from the storage of fresh food storage appliances to the economic center of the kitchen... It can be said that the development history of the refrigerator is the evolutionary history of human needs. Whether it is the upgrading of the structure, the innovation of the technology or the construction of the ecological model, it is undoubtedly leading the way. The industrial upgrading of the refrigerator market has also given consumers the reason to purchase high-end refrigerators. At the same time, consumers also have the ability to pay for demand. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2017, the per capita disposable income of the country's residents actually increased. At 7.3%, the growth rate was 1% faster than that of the previous year, faster than GDP growth rate of 0.4%. Overall, consumers have both the will and the ability to pay for high-end refrigerators. The key issue today is that companies Can you develop products that match consumer needs?
Finally, from the perspective of the enterprise, the raw refrigerators, raw materials costs, logistics costs, and warehouse costs, which were originally exhausted, have been rising. This has brought great pressure on the company's development and it has also forced enterprises to accelerate. The pace of high-end transformation. From the new brands of refrigerators that have been launched by major brands, you can get a glimpse of what happened.
Focus on the high-end refrigerator market of more than 10,000 yuan, According to the monthly monitoring data of China Yikang Line: 'The Casa Di F+ free-standing series refrigerators', the overall average price was as high as 18854 yuan from January to May 2018, occupying more than 10,000 yuan in high-end refrigerator market 8.3% of the retail sales share; the average price of single-product refrigerators in the "Rongmin differential refrigerator" is 11,220 yuan, which accounts for 1.6% of the high-end refrigerator market's retail sales.
Based on the above three points, 'Compulsory market conditions, changes in consumer demand, business pressure and responsibility' jointly promote the rapid development of the high-end refrigerator trend.
How long can the high-end refrigerator bonus go?
What is the status of high-end refrigerators? As of May this year, according to the Zhongkang 'Quarterly Law' principle, refrigerators over 8,000 yuan can be defined as high-end refrigerators. Contrast to the same period of 2017, under the general environment of negative growth of 2.6% in the overall refrigerator market. , The retail sales of high-end refrigerators increased by 23.6% year-on-year, becoming a major highlight of the refrigerator market. Does this mean that the outlook for high-end refrigerators is bright and the layout is profitable?
From the perspective of the overall refrigerator industry, more than half of the product structure upgrades with multiple doors and door-opening directions have passed. The next month's retail monitoring data of Zhongyi-Kang Line, multi-door, and the total retail sales of door-to-door refrigerators have been accounted for by 2012. The 35.7% increase to 68.6% in January-May in 2018. The upgrade of the two-door, three-door internal air-cooled technology has also come to an end. Air-cooled two-door air-cooled three-door refrigerators retail sales The proportion has increased from 10.7% in 2012 to 73.8% in January-May in 2018. Overall, the opportunity for the refrigerator market to increase the proportion of high-end products through large structural upgrades has become smaller.
From the perspective of brand structure, in the high-end refrigerator market of over 8,000 yuan, domestic brands are rapidly expanding. The share of retail sales rose rapidly from 38.9% in the same period of last year to 56.8% in the first five months of this year. The share of foreign brands fell back to 43.2%. If the domestic and foreign investment ratio of the overall refrigerator market is taken as a reference, then the domestic brands’ share expansion will be around 20%, and the ownership of these shares will become the focus of brand competition. At the same time, according to the domestic brands in the high-end market in recent years The speed of expansion, the competition for these shares will be within three to four years. From the current point of view, several major domestic brands are increasing their efforts in the distribution of high-end refrigerators. The competition is fierce, with more than RMB 8000 inside Haier. The proportion of retail sales of refrigerators increased by 9.2 points to 30.4%. Within Rongsheng, the proportion of refrigerators with more than 8,000 yuan was doubled to 12.7%. The proportion of high-end refrigerators in Midea, Meiling and Hisense also increased from less than five points to rapid rises respectively. 10.6%, 10.9%, 8.4%.
Based on the above two aspects, it can be said that the high-end competition in the refrigerator market has reached a critical period. Whoever can seize the opportunities in these three or four years and move forward will be able to ride the wave of high-end refrigerators on the market. stand out.
In the future, high-end refrigerators rely on what is achieved? As mentioned above, it is increasingly difficult to achieve high-end refrigerators through large structural upgrades. The next wave of opportunities will be achieved through 'differentiated products'. The so-called differentiation will It mainly focuses on 'structure differences, functional differences, material differences, and differences in market segmentation'. First, the structural differences here refer to the secondary innovations of the structure. For example, the three doors that appeared in the market in the past two years. Refrigerators, refrigerators in Chinese characters, F+ refrigerators, and duplex refrigerators, etc. Second, the functional differences are based on technical perspectives, such as dry and wet storage, activation of water molecules, fresh crystals, etc., and differences in freezing. The preservation function is rising. Third, material differences. For example, the compressor-free wine cooler, R290 refrigerator, etc. Fourth, the market segmentation differences. It is mainly based on the specific needs of consumers, such as beauty refrigerators, wine coolers, Baby and child refrigerators, car refrigerators, children's refrigerators, etc.
It can be seen that the high-end of the refrigerator has become a general trend, but the high-end road also unknowingly reached the second half, how to play the precise matching 'combination boxing' in the crucial period that determines the winner and the loser, which requires major refrigerator companies to grasp the major Opportunity period, forward-looking, forward.
