The Spring Festival is approaching, and the home appliance market is ushering in the peak sales season. Smart home appliances and electronic products have become the new favorites for the New Year. In the past few days, reporters from Securities Daily visited Suning.com, Gome Electric, Red Star Macalline and other home appliance stores and found that in the mainstream brand sales exhibition area, artificial intelligence (AI) home appliance sales were eye-catching, adding new ideas and innovation to the Spring Festival consumer market. vitality.

Intelligent control as standard

In a home appliance store on the North Fifth Ring Road in Beijing, promotional slogans such as "New Year's Day", "Direct Drops" and "Package Purchases" can be seen everywhere, creating a strong festive atmosphere.

Walking around the store, smart home appliances are in full bloom. The AI refrigerator with the slogan "Intelligent Internet Conversation with the Future" can realize functions such as human-machine dialogue and menu management; the screen shows a working AI laundry robot; just wave your hand, and the AI hood and stove can "smok" and be linked together Automatic wok cooking...AI home appliances are entering people's lives and becoming consumers' new favorites.

The Panasonic exhibition area, where all series of home appliances are equipped with AI functions, attracted many consumers to stop and buy. Different from previous years, all Panasonic products have begun to be AI-enabled. "Panasonic air conditioners have launched New Year's Day activities. So far, Panasonic air conditioner sales in the Chinese market have increased by more than 29% compared with the same period last year." said Zheng Jinwei, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Panasonic Air Conditioner Co., Ltd.

Also focusing on smart interconnection functions are home appliance brands such as Haier and Hisense. According to Hisense sales staff, the company's refrigerators, washing machines and other products that will be launched in 2023 are already generally equipped with NFC functions, which can realize remote control, menu entry and tracking and other functions. In addition, a batch of AI products will also be launched this year.

Riding on the "east wind" of pre-holiday sales, the penetration rate of smart home appliances in my country has increased rapidly. Data from Suning.com shows that since the New Year’s Day started on January 5, as of February 4, more than 90% of Suning.com’s stores have been equipped with smart TVs, over 70% of air conditioners are smart, and washing machines, refrigerators, and range hoods have been smart. The proportion of intelligent machines has exceeded 50%. Sales of smart home appliances increased by over 127% year-on-year, and trade-in orders increased by over 195% year-on-year.

On the online shopping platform, smart home appliances have also achieved good sales results. According to Taotian Group, Tmall’s smart home appliances have grown by more than 40% year-on-year since the New Year Festival began. JD.com said that as of January 21, smart TV sales have grown by more than 60% year-on-year, and smart kitchen small appliances have grown by more than 50% year-on-year.

A relevant person in charge of Suning.com said: "Since the New Year Festival started, the number of new products in the store has surged. Among them, the number of new 'screen' products represented by mobile phones, computers, and TVs has been higher from January 5 to February 4. From December 5, 2023 to January 4, 2024, it increased by 134%, and overall store sales increased by 109% year-on-year. Intelligent control functions have become the 'new standard' for home appliances."

Whole-house appliances have also become the main promotion of major stores before the Spring Festival. Shao Yang, President of Huawei's whole-home smart product line, said that under the influence of the continuous upgrading of Hongmeng ecology and the warming of the market, smart home appliances, homes and cars have also become deeply interconnected, and related orders have continued to grow.

In addition, smart electric heaters, heating tables and other electrical appliances have become “a fire in winter”, and consumption continues to rise. Since January 2024, the overall order volume of Suning's warm winter products has increased by 114% year-on-year, and the sales volume of oil heaters has increased by more than 113% month-on-month. Relevant people from Gree Electric Appliances said that "warm consumption" is heating up rapidly, and the sales of Gree electric heating products have increased significantly.

Market consumption trends and main groups of people are also quietly changing. A relevant person in charge of Suning.com said that during the New Year Festival, the average unit price of trendy electronic products increased by 27.6%, and "Generation Z" accounted for more than 70% of electronic product consumers. "For every five mobile phones sold in the store, one comes from new retail consumption scenarios such as Douyin and Meituan. User consumption scenarios are accelerating to diversify." said the person in charge.

Promotional activities are in full swing

As the Spring Festival approaches, home appliance companies have launched a number of activities. In January this year, Haier launched the "Beautiful Year of China" event and brought interactive activities such as user-customized New Year's Eve dinner. Midea Group launched discounts on home appliances during the big promotion period, and promised not to close during the Spring Festival. Hisense Video launched the New Year Festival event and launched a combination of three major categories including laser TV. According to reports, since the launch of the New Year Festival on January 9 as of February 1, sales of Hisense TVs have increased by 19% year-on-year.

In this round of promotions, the price reduction of home appliances is relatively large. Among them, the price of smart connected washing machines has dropped significantly, and the price of air conditioners and other products has generally dropped by 100 yuan to 500 yuan compared with last summer. A store shopping guide said: "A 15% discount on package purchases, replacement, and direct discounts are the standard features of major manufacturers to impact the market."

In interviews, many consumers said that before the Spring Festival is a good time to buy home appliances. "Whether it is from the perspective of popularity, product quality or technology, we have more and more confidence in domestic home appliances." Ms. Zhou, a consumer, told reporters.

As a comprehensive channel for home appliance sales, chain supermarkets and home appliance stores are also undergoing changes and iterations. Different from focusing on product sales in the past, supermarket stores such as Wumart, Red Star Macalline, and Shundian have introduced intelligent digital methods such as VR experience and online product selection, allowing consumers to preview the overall effect of home furnishings, home decoration, and home appliances in advance and conduct Behind the purchase decision is the deep integration of the home decoration, home furnishing, and home appliance markets.

The relevant person in charge of Red Star Macalline said that during the Spring Festival, consumers have stronger demands for product service and quality, such as the timeliness of logistics delivery and installation efficiency, product maintenance during the Spring Festival, etc. Judging from the order volume of comprehensive smart home products and emerging services, the market is getting warmer.

The Spring Festival promotion activities of home appliance companies are in full swing, which has undoubtedly injected impetus into the home appliance sales market. Zhu Keli, executive director of the China Information Association, said that from the perspective of the Spring Festival market, new sales models such as online and offline integration and customization have become popular, and home appliance companies have accelerated destocking to lay the foundation for the new year. With the iteration of technology, intelligence, energy saving and emission reduction will promote the development of home appliances in a more environmentally friendly and environmentally friendly direction.

In the past year, China's home appliance market has shown a steady recovery. In 2024, the industry will brew more new opportunities amid structural adjustments. The overseas layout of home appliance companies is expected to change from "going out" to "going in", in which value export is the key. At the same time, with the arrival of the "Sports Year", the sports marketing of home appliance brands will present a multi-brand operation pattern. According to Aowei Cloud, the annual retail sales of the home appliance market will increase by 0.7% year-on-year in 2024.

The home appliance market is full of business opportunities. How to stand out in numerous promotional activities, turn smart home appliances into new consumption growth points, and promote continuous upgrading of the industry is a question that home appliance companies need to think about. In this regard, Yuan Shuai, deputy secretary-general of the Zhongguancun Internet of Things Industry Alliance, believes that home appliance companies need to continue to innovate, pay attention to changes in domestic and foreign trade environments, maintain keen market insights, and strengthen independent innovation to cope with various challenges and opportunities.

Xu Dongsheng, Vice Chairman of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, said: "The overall development of the home appliance industry in 2024 will be driven by internal and external driving forces. Enterprises should strengthen their innovation and control over global layout, seize the development opportunities of this round of AI products, and transform China's smart 'Manufacturing is accelerating to the world, making the home appliance industry an important engine for promoting consumption and promoting stable economic growth."