2023 appliance perspective: small appliance market returns to rationality

According to the statistical data of Ovi Cloud, after a sharp decline in 2021, the small home appliance market in 2022 still shows a downward trend, but the decline has narrowed. According to the general data of the traditional channel of AVC, the retail sales of small kitchen appliances (rice cookers, induction cookers, electric pressure cookers, soymilk machines, wall-breakers, blenders, juicers, electric kettles, fryers, health care pots, electric steam cookers, desktop single-function ovens, air fryers) totaled 52. 3 billion yuan in 13 categories, down 6.7% year on year; The retail volume was 22.049 million units, down 12.7% year on year.

Among them, online retail sales amounted to 38.6 billion yuan, down 2.9% year on year; The retail sales in the offline market were 13.43 billion yuan, down 16.0% year on year. In addition, Tiktok channel sales reached 5.74 billion yuan, accounting for 17.6% online.

With the Spring Festival approaching in 2023, can the small household appliance industry "clean up the old mountains and rivers" and start again?

The resilient market of small household appliances with fast consumer property needs to be explored

Unlike everyone else, the technology threshold of small household appliances industry is not high and the cost is relatively low. Various characteristics determine the flexibility of the industry, which can quickly respond to the new demands of the consumer market. After three years of development of the epidemic, the small household appliance industry has been constantly emerging new market segments: under the new needs of consumer health, skin care, pet care and other new needs, pet small household appliances, beauty care small household appliances and oral care small household appliances have been rapidly developed, and have now formed a considerable market scale. According to the White Paper of China's Pet Industry in 2021, the market size of pet small household appliances will reach 3.9 billion yuan in 2021. According to Euromonitor data, the market size of beauty instruments will reach 10 billion yuan in 2021 and 7.9 billion yuan in 2020.

In addition, the penetration of coffee culture in the Chinese market has also led to the vigorous development of small coffee appliances such as coffee machines. According to the retail monitoring data of China Yikang, as of October 31, 2022, the total retail sales of China's coffee machine market was 2.17 billion yuan, YoY+27.2%, which was one of the fastest growing kitchen appliances in 2022.

All kinds of phenomena show that, despite the impact of the economic recession and the reduction of consumption desire, the small home appliance industry can still maintain optimistic expectations and find new growth points in the downturn of other home appliance industries with its low price and flexible resilience.

In addition, with the pursuit of the quality of life of young people in small towns, the penetration rate of small household appliances will have greater room for improvement in the future.

In recent years, the proportion of sunk channels has gradually increased and gradually become a new growth track. According to the statistical data of Ovi Cloud, from January to October 2022, the retail sales volume of sinking channels has reached 33.28 billion yuan, and the retail volume has reached 13.831 million units.

At the same time, in terms of the number of small household appliances owned by each household, China is still at the downstream level and still has a large space for development. According to the data compiled by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the number of small household appliances owned by each household in China is only 9.5, while the number of small household appliances owned by each household in the United States is up to 31.5, and the number of small household appliances owned by each household in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and France is more than 20. From the perspective of per capita consumption of household appliances, China still has a large gap from other developed countries. According to the statistics of Statista, the per capita consumption of small household appliances in the world reached US $30, of which the per capita consumption of small household appliances in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Brazil reached US $50, while the per capita consumption of China was only US $35, which still has a large room for improvement.

All kinds of signs indicate that the growth space of the small home appliance market still needs to be explored by enterprises.

Key words of small household appliance industry in 2023: health, intelligence and interest

With the evolution of young consumers' concept of life and the upgrading of their demands for health and intelligence, there is an increasing demand for their interests, physical health and intelligent and comfortable life. Small household appliances such as multifunctional cooking machines, floor washers, instant water dispensers, fruit and vegetable washers, food heating plates, cat water feeders and other small household appliances will become the topic of small household appliances in 2022. During the "Double 11" period in 2022, the sales of these small household appliances will increase to varying degrees.

In 2023, family epidemic prevention and expected retaliatory consumption will bring new opportunities to the sales growth of small household appliances market. Grasping the current consumer's demand for comfortable life and physical health, and launching small household appliances that improve the quality of life of consumers will become a new start for the industry to resume growth.

Some insiders said that consumers' pursuit of the functions of small household appliance products has led to more diversified consumer demand. Facing the continuous improvement of consumer demand, enterprises have also begun to innovate in product functions, and the types and application scenarios of small household appliance products will become more and more abundant in the future.

In the field of smart small home appliances, in recent years, the State Council, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments have successively issued policies to support the development of the smart home appliance industry, promote the integration of smart home appliances with other related industries, and enrich the use scenarios of smart home appliances. As an important supporting part of the smart home appliance industry, smart small home appliances are also affected by the policy dividend.

According to the data, China's smart small household appliances show a continuous development trend. The market size will reach 155.7 billion yuan in 2021 and is expected to reach 192.4 billion yuan in 2023.

Problems to be paid attention to in 2023: quality and innovation

However, it should be noted that if the small home appliance industry wants to develop healthily in 2023, the quality problem is still a focus that deserves attention. According to relevant research data, more than 60% of smart small household appliances consumers pay more attention to product function and quality issues when purchasing products. In 2022, the quality problems of small household appliances still haven't been properly solved. Among the commodity complaints, the complaints of household electronic appliances have always been in the forefront, with more than 100000 complaints in the whole year. Among them, the complaints of small household appliances are particularly prominent because of the difficulties in providing evidence, identification and rights protection costs of small household appliances.

Another problem is the technical innovation of the small home appliance industry. On the whole, many enterprises in the small home appliance industry still produce products that are homogeneous and lack the ability of independent innovation. The number of enterprises with differentiation, high-end product design, research and development, and production capacity is small. Especially in the field of personal care small household appliances, the overall technical gap between domestic brands and internationally renowned enterprises, such as Dyson, is still obvious, and the overall level of the industry still needs to be improved.

summary

Li Tao, editor-in-chief of Home Appliance Network, believes that with the increase of real estate policies such as guaranteed delivery and demand-side, the optimization of epidemic prevention policies and the continuous promotion of home appliance subsidies to promote the recovery of offline channels and residents' purchasing power, home appliances, as a post-cycle industry of real estate with consumer attributes, may face a reversal of difficulties. Among them, emerging circuits such as small home appliances are still in the stage of rapid increase in penetration, and it is expected that the segment circuits will still maintain rapid growth. As long as we maintain rational management and do not follow the trend and be complacent, the small household appliance industry in 2023 will still usher in a new spring.