Green intelligence leads the updating and upgrading of household appliance consumption

Green intelligence leads the updating and upgrading of household appliance consumption

Recently, the Ministry of Commerce and other four departments jointly issued the "Notice on Promoting Green and Intelligent Home Appliance Consumption in 2023", and the policy of boosting home appliance consumption continues to be put into effect. Compared with previous policies to promote home appliance consumption, this year's policies have clearly defined two main themes: promoting green and intelligent home appliances to the countryside and exchanging old for new.

What are the current characteristics of the home appliance consumer market? How can the government and enterprises better meet people's demand for green, intelligent, and fashionable home appliance consumption upgrades? A reporter from China City Daily conducted an interview on this matter.

The "home scene" is becoming increasingly diversified, and the consumption structure of household appliances is being optimized and upgraded

With the arrival of high temperature weather in summer, intelligent and convenient air conditioning products have become popular sales. Mr. Yao, a citizen of Nanjing, Jiangsu, praised the relevant smart connectivity features when purchasing air conditioning in the home appliance smart connectivity experience area of the Suning Yijia Xinjiekou store in Nanjing. "By setting the away mode on my phone, I can avoid forgetting to turn off the air conditioning when I go out. This is not only convenient, but also conducive to energy conservation and emission reduction

At present, 'fresh air sterilization, fast cooling, and green electricity conservation' have become important standards for consumers to choose air conditioners. 'Mr. Mao, the head of Nanjing Suning Yijia Xinjiekou store, said that with the arrival of summer, the offline physical home appliance market represented by air conditioners is gradually recovering vitality; Home appliance companies are actively adapting to the new concept of "home scene" by opening green and intelligent home appliance experience stores in pedestrian streets, commercial districts, and quarter hour convenient living areas, continuously improving consumers' shopping experience.

Household appliance consumption is an important component of residents' consumption in China. The "2022 China Home Appliance Market Report" released by the China Institute of Electronic Information Industry Development shows that the total retail sales of China's home appliance market in 2022 were 835.2 billion yuan, although a year-on-year decrease of 5.2%, slightly higher than the level in 2020.

Wang Yun, Deputy Director of the Institute of Foreign Economics at the China Academy of Macroeconomics, stated: "In recent years, from traditional household appliances to innovative Small appliance, the variety and brand of household appliances in China have been constantly enriched, showing a positive trend of development. With the improvement of consumers' quality of life, various innovative household appliances have emerged and rapidly popularized, meeting users' needs for a new life scene. A series of new household appliances, such as hand free wall breaking machines, multi-functional sweeping robots, and those with intelligent dust detection and sewage recovery functions Washing machines and other products have occupied an important position in the home appliance market

A reporter from China City Daily found that in recent years, online consumption of household appliances has become the mainstream. According to statistics, the retail sales of China's electric wire market reached 486.1 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 4.24%; The proportion of home appliance online shopping is as high as 58.2%, far exceeding the overall penetration rate of online shopping in China. At the same time, there has been a significant increase in the retail sales of home appliances in online channels and sinking markets, providing stable support for the overall home appliance market and reflecting the resilience of the Chinese home appliance market.

In addition, the consumption structure of household appliances in the sinking market is gradually shifting towards high-end, green, and intelligent. In this regard, Fu Yifu, a senior researcher of Starmap Financial Research Institute, analyzed that, on the one hand, consumer demand is increasingly refined, and Small appliance such as sweeping robots, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, massagers and other products with health, hygiene and safety labels are increasingly popular. On the other hand, the expansion of the middle-income family group and the improvement of technological level have given rise to strong consumer demand for high-quality and high-end home appliance products, and the transformation of the home appliance market is evident in various aspects; And new intelligent functions, such as remote monitoring and voice interaction, are also being accepted and used by more and more consumers.

Efforts from multiple parties to stimulate consumption motivation, expand coverage, and benefit more residents

At present, China's home appliance consumption market has entered a stage of stable growth, especially in the field of consumer electricity consumption. Consumer demand has shifted more towards replacement and upgrading consumption rather than universal consumption. Wang Yun said that as the home appliance market shifts from incremental competition to stock competition, all parties should work together to fill the shortcomings of the home appliance market, break through consumption barriers, and drive the high-quality and efficient development of home appliances and their upstream and downstream related industries.

During the "618" mid year promotion period this year, Mr. Zhang, who works in Beijing, purchased a fully functional stone G20 sweeping robot for his parents living in their hometown of Liaocheng, Shandong. Simply press the start button and the robot can sweep, mop, and wash the mop in one go, "Mr. Zhang introduced to a reporter from China City Daily.

It is understood that in this year's "618" promotion activity, the sales of Roborock's sweeping robots reached 1.23 billion yuan, up 4.15% year on year. As for this achievement, Chang Jing, the chairman and CEO of Roborock, said: "Although the scale of intelligent new appliances is small, they involve a wide range of scientific and technological fields. In order to meet the needs of increasingly upgraded users, continuous technological iteration and innovation are needed. We will invest more resources in scientific research and development, overcome technical problems, and lead the high-quality development of the appliance industry with innovation."

Recently, Ms. Kang, a resident of Jianghan District, Wuhan, Hubei Province, participated in the activity of exchanging old appliances for new ones at the local Tangjiadun store of industrial and trade appliances. She bought a Fangtai variable frequency side Kitchen hood with intelligent cruise supercharging 3.0 technology, and fully felt the convenient life experience brought by the new household appliances. The kitchen equipment at home is aging and poses a safety hazard. I took advantage of the discount to purchase a new one, "Ms. Kang said

A reporter from China City Daily noticed that the "Hundred Cities, Thousand Villages, and Ten Thousand Household Appliances Benefiting the People, Revitalizing the Old and Revitalizing the New" activity organized by the China Home Appliance Service and Maintenance Association has been launched nationwide since early 2022. Numerous government departments, industry associations, e-commerce platforms, and home appliance production, circulation, and recycling enterprises have responded and vigorously promoted the "old for new" activity of home appliances, tailoring high-quality services and preferential schemes for consumers. Zhao Jie, Vice President of the China Home Appliance Service and Maintenance Association, stated in an interview with a reporter from China City Daily: We are actively encouraging the implementation of home appliance trade in activities to accelerate the development of new consumer markets, promote green consumption, and improve urban consumption levels while making up for rural consumption shortcomings. The 'exchange economy' development model will play an important role in promoting the high-quality development of the home appliance service industry, and provide consumers with a green, environmentally friendly, intelligent, and convenient life experience through real exchange

Fu Yifu stated that the main incremental space for household appliance consumption has gradually shifted to cities, counties, towns, and rural areas below the third tier. Driven by this trend, many local governments actively guide enterprises to focus on county towns and townships, optimize and enhance the construction of home appliance marketing networks, encourage home appliance production, sales, maintenance, recycling enterprises, and e-commerce platforms to expand sinking channels, and establish direct stores, experience stores, service outlets, recycling stations, and front-end warehouses at the county and township levels; On the other hand, we actively encourage the development of green smart home appliances that adapt to the characteristics of the rural market and the consumption needs of the elderly.

It is worth mentioning that during the "618" mid year promotion period this year, major e-commerce platforms actively introduced measures such as consumption red envelopes and logistics subsidies to promote green smart home appliances to the countryside and stimulate the purchasing vitality of county and town markets. According to the retail cloud data of Suning.com, the demand for fresh air health air conditioners in the county and town markets has increased significantly, with sales up 86% year on year; Products such as dishwashers, integrated stoves, and embedded ovens are highly favored by consumers, with year-on-year sales growth of 89%, 61%, and 143% respectively.

Strengthen the recycling and utilization of waste household appliances, scientifically construct the entire industrial chain

With the increasing popularity of green and intelligent home appliance consumption, the number of traditional home appliances being phased out is also rapidly increasing. According to statistics, the waste of telegrams in our country increases at a rate of 16% annually, reaching an average of 220 million units per year. However, there are still problems with the relatively small scale of waste household appliance recycling, blocked channels, and private illegal dismantling. Therefore, relevant government departments and household appliance production enterprises continue to optimize the recycling and treatment system of waste household appliances, in order to further promote the upgrading of green and intelligent household appliances for new consumption.

The supply and marketing cooperative system, together with Haier, Midea and other home appliance manufacturers and e-commerce sales platforms, accelerated the promotion of the trade in business, and adopted the "Internet plus+recycling of used home appliances" model to improve recycling efficiency. According to relevant data, the total amount of electronic waste product recycling in China in 2022 is approximately 4.42 million tons, with a total recycling value of approximately 17.19 billion yuan.

In addition to the recycling process, downstream dismantling is also a huge market, and the market size for renewal demand indirectly created by home appliance recycling is expected to reach a level of hundreds of billions of yuan. A reporter from China City Daily found that in 2022, the dismantling volume of qualified dismantling enterprises in China, including "four machines and one brain" (televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and computers), was about 84 million units. Among them, the total production of dismantled items was about 2.3 million tons, and the processing capacity was about 2.28 million tons, with a utilization rate of 99%.

It is worth mentioning that the "Recycling Specification for Waste Electrical and Electronic Products" developed by China Renewable Recycling Association has effectively filled the standard gap in the recycling and circulation of household appliances.

Fu Yifu stated that China's home appliance industry needs to deeply explore consumption hotspots, promote green manufacturing, and continue to strongly support the recycling of waste home appliances. We should fully implement the gigabit fiber optic network project, accelerate the renovation of old urban residential areas, and enhance rural power grids, which will further promote the development of the home appliance industry. Fu Yifu said, "Enterprises should further leverage their own advantages, build a full industry chain covering home appliance promotion, convenient collection, and efficient processing, help expand green and intelligent home appliance consumption, and provide strong support for green, circular, and low-carbon development