The small home appliance industry increased by 0.8% year-on-year in the first half of 2023, facing severe challenges in the future

According to AVC's omnichannel promotion data from January to June 2023, the overall retail sales of kitchen small appliances (including categories: coffee machines, rice cookers, induction cookers, electric steam stewers, desktop single function small ovens, and air fryers) reached 27.55 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.5%, and a retail sales volume of 131.01 million units, an increase of 0.8%.

It is not difficult to find that the development of the small home appliance market has seen a roller coaster like development in recent years. Firstly, the epidemic has brought explosive growth to the kitchen small home appliance industry. However, with the end of the "homestay economy" and "lazy economy", the small home appliance industry has also experienced a downturn.

According to data from Ovi Cloud, the market size of the small home appliance industry increased by 9.4% year-on-year in 2022, but in the first half of 2021, there was a year-on-year decrease of 8.6%. In 2022, the retail sales of 13 categories of small household appliances reached 52.03 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.7%; The retail volume was 220.49 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 12.7%.

In the form of a slowdown in the growth rate of the small home appliance industry, we have also seen many trends and performance in the market.

Firstly, the popularity of new categories has driven the rapid development of the small home appliance market due to the popularity of air fryers over the past period of time. Today, this feature is still ongoing. In the first half of 2023, coffee machines became one of the key categories driving the small home appliance market to continue moving forward, and the retail sales of the omnichannel coffee machine category increased by 16.1% year-on-year.

Secondly, the small home appliance market is experiencing consumption upgrading. In the first half of 2023, most categories of small household appliances saw an increase in average prices. During the 618 period of this year, the data showing a 2.4% increase in the retail sales share of the 2000+rice cooker market also indicates that consumers are upgrading their quality needs from being able to use in the past to being good at using.

The third is that outdoor scenes have become a new direction for small household appliances. With the end of the epidemic, the tourism industry is experiencing a rise in retaliatory consumption, and outdoor camping has become a very fashionable form of entertainment. This has also driven the development of outdoor camping small appliances, with the popularity of portable power supplies, electric barbecue stoves, foldable stainless steel electric kettles, outdoor portable pot sets and other products constantly increasing, becoming a new blue ocean for small appliances.

In fact, in addition, small home appliance products are more towards health. In the post pandemic era, people's demand for health related small home appliances has generally increased, and many small home appliance products also pay more attention to people's health needs. For example, mite removal devices, disinfection and sweeping integrated machines, air purifiers, etc. have become essential small household appliances in the new era. These consumption trends will drive the small home appliance industry to usher in a development boom.

advertisement

Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that small household appliances are becoming more intelligent. In the field of small home appliances, as the post-90s gradually become the main consumer, they are more pursuing intelligent devices, especially with the advent of the AioT era. Kitchen small home appliances with intelligent programs that can achieve one click cooking are deeply loved by consumers. Intelligence will undoubtedly become one of the driving forces for the development of small home appliance products in the future.

So, the development of small home appliances is full of opportunities. In 2022, the small home appliance industry released the "2022 Global Small Home Appliance Trend Insight White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper"). The White Paper points out that the global per capita consumption of small household appliances has reached the threshold of $30, with developed countries having a per capita consumption that can reach 1.5 to 2 times that of developing countries. As the world's largest home appliance market, the Asia Pacific region is full of many opportunities, and the small home appliance market in China is also full of opportunities.

Yang Fan, founder of Minmin Home Appliance Network and a senior media figure, said, "The potential of the small home appliance market in the future is very great, especially the trend of intelligent, healthy, and high-quality small home appliances will usher in the healthy development of the entire small home appliance industry. However, due to the low entry threshold of the small home appliance industry, brands should seize the original intention and bring consumers more quality guaranteed products

Relevant institutions predict that by 2023, the market size of China's smart small home appliances is expected to reach 192.4 billion yuan, with a very optimistic outlook.