Personal care, personality, high-end home appliance industry products "keywords" have changed

Recently, the 2022 Annual Report of China's Home Appliance Industry, which was prepared by the National Home Appliance Industry Information Center under the guidance of the China Home Appliance Research Institute, was released. The data shows that in 2022, the traditional categories in the domestic home appliance market have declined to different degrees, and the growth trend of tuyere quality home appliances is good. Some industry views predict that the overall home appliance market will recover to some extent this year, but at the same time, the change of product pattern is also quietly unfolding. The market share will focus on small personal care appliances, personalized appliances and high-end appliances.

According to the data of the National Household Appliances Industry Information Center, the domestic retail sales of household appliances will reach 730.72 billion yuan in 2022, down 9.5% year on year. In addition, according to the data of the General Administration of Customs, the export of household appliances will be 3366.45 million in 2022, down 13% year on year; The export value was 568.16 billion yuan, down 10.9% year on year.

In traditional mass TV sets, color TV sets continue to be impacted by mobile terminal screens, and under the influence of lower market prices in the second half of the year, the sales scale shows a double-digit decline; The sales of washing machines also declined by more than 10% due to limited replacement purchases by consumers.

Xu Yiqiang, an industry observer, pointed out that the downturn of the home appliance market last year was mainly affected by the general environment, but it should be noted that the decline of color TV sets, washing machines and other categories had other endogenous reasons, including the crux of product homogeneity and weakening of brand effect.

In particular, the capacity of traditional household appliances is relatively surplus, and the competition between manufacturers is very fierce. In addition, in traditional household appliances, products of different brands are relatively similar. Therefore, consumers are more inclined to buy products with low prices, which forces enterprises to adopt low-price strategies to attract customers, and then fall into a price war cycle.

Xu Yiqiang pointed out that, more fundamentally, as a necessity, traditional large household appliances have limited market space and cannot provide more increment. At present, the domestic household appliance inventory has increased significantly. Through measures such as "home appliances to the countryside", sinking the market is no longer a blank area for "horse racing and enclosure". Although enterprises can play a "price reduction card", the marginal benefits of this strategy are also decreasing, and the increase in sales is limited.

For the household appliance market in 2023, industry experts predict that recovery is expected, but more market share will focus on personal care small appliances, personalized appliances and high-end appliances. For enterprises, it will be the only way to adapt to market changes and take advantage of the situation.

The data also corroborates this point. According to the data of AIMedia Consulting, the market size of small household appliances has an obvious upward trend in 2017-2022, with a five-year compound growth rate of 8.72%. It is expected that by the end of 2023, its market size is expected to reach 192.4 billion yuan. It is subdivided into different types of small household appliances, among which small household appliances are the most popular in the market in 2022, with about 41.6% of consumers preferring to buy; The second category is kitchen and bathroom, accounting for 37.2%.

Liang Zhenpeng, a senior industrial economic observer, said that in the foreseeable future, the shipment of personalized home appliances will continue to increase. Compared with color TV sets, refrigerators, air conditioners and other essential appliances, today's consumers prefer products that can improve the quality of life.

Liang Zhenpeng believes that with the continuous improvement of living standards and consumption concepts, consumer demand for household appliances has also changed. It is no longer just to pursue the performance and price of products, but to pay more attention to personalized requirements, such as product design, function and use experience.

In addition, the increase of family personalized demand can not be ignored. With the diversification of family structure and the differentiation of family needs, consumers' personalized demand for household appliances is also increasingly strong. For example, some families need kitchen appliances to adapt to different cooking needs, while others pay more attention to the intelligence and connectivity of products.

In addition to personalization, high-end will become the focus of stimulating the home appliance market. Take refrigerator products as an example, "going high-end" is setting off a wave in the transformation and upgrading war of brands. According to the data of Ovi Cloud, in 2022, the retail volume of the offline refrigerator market will drop 12.8% year on year, but the average price will rise 17.1%. The market of more than 8000 yuan will occupy half of the market, with the retail volume accounting for 48.8%.

Xu Yiqiang said that home appliance enterprises can increase high-end contacts, such as setting out in large chain core stores, strengthening the layout of building materials channels, especially high-end building materials stores, strengthening designer channels, TOP retail stores, and scene home appliance experience stores directly operated by brands, and increasing online and offline high-end sharing meetings, are all good strategies to comply with the trend of high-end home appliances.