Home Appliance Industry Returns Zero Subsidy Sales Decline

With the home appliances market fully returning to the “zero subsidies” era, the home appliance industry in the second half of 2013 has once again triggered market and corporate concerns. A few days ago, Peng Yi, vice president of Zhongyekang Market Research Co., gave the above forecast.

Zhang Yanbin, assistant president of Ovid Consulting, also stated that “I don’t think about the development of the home appliance industry in the future. It is impossible for the market to grow at a rate of 10% to 30%. Because the external economic environment is not supported, the household electrical appliance retention rate has also been in recent years. remarkable growth."

Fall or exceed imagination

Since 2008, the country has taken the development of the home appliance industry into the policy support track. This is also considered to be the cause of the “bottom-bottom rebound” in the home appliance market in the first half of this year, but it cannot reverse the downward trend of the market in the second half of the year.

In the first half of this year, the home appliance market has “bottomed out” and cannot really reverse the downward trend in the second half of the year.

In Peng Yu's opinion, "the market decline in the second half of the year is a foregone conclusion. Whether next year will continue this downward trend will be determined by the time window in August. But what each household appliance company should do next is to slow the speed of decline." .

At present, TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, and water heaters have received policy support in the past few years. Domestic kitchen appliances, such as hoods, gas stoves, and rice cookers, have been unable to obtain policy support. Peng Yu believes that "the overall decline in the market is at least 10% or more, and some categories may decline more than 40% or even 50%."

Zhang Yanbin also pointed out that “at present, the urban market is a newer market and the rural market is a growth market. However, the rate of urban regeneration is not fast, and the exit of home appliances to the countryside has a greater impact on the rural market, so the entire industry has growth. Insufficient motivation."

Spring Plumbing Duck Prophet. The downward trend of the home appliance industry has already responded to the retail market ahead of schedule. From the beginning of 2012 to the first half of this year, national and regional home appliance chain companies have experienced a “closed tide”.

Wu Xianjian, the deputy secretary-general of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, also stated that “China’s home appliance consumer market has shown signs of recovery in the first five months of this year. It is expected that the overall market will continue to grow at a low rate in the second half of the year. Individual companies will have the potential to outperform the market fundamentals. Depending on factors such as the closure of stores last year, individual household appliance retailers may experience a sharp decline.

More bad than good

Behind the establishment of the home appliance industry's decline in the second half of 2013, it is precisely in recent years that the favorable factors for maintaining the rapid expansion of China's home appliance industry have plummeted, and multiple unfavorable factors are coming.

"In the short term, the macroeconomic trend will be complicated and ambiguous. In the long run, economic growth will slow down steadily. The impact of the economic environment on the household appliance industry is lagging, but consumer behavior has a forward-looking outlook on economic trends." Peng Yu believes that the external economic environment is The role of consumers is immediate, and it will have an impact on the subsequent home appliance market.

In addition to the slowdown in the external economic trend, the withdrawal of state policies in recent years has triggered a period of vacancy in the home appliance consumer market. “Because of the policy stimulus, a large amount of consumer demand will be overdrawn ahead of time, which will cause a long period of blank period for the next generation of home appliance market, which will inevitably cause market sales to stagnate or decline.” Peng Yi also believes that real estate is closely linked with home appliances. Market policy control is still continuing, which is also a negative factor.

Zhang Yanbin pointed out: “Compared to the just-exited energy-saving policy, the exit of home appliances to the countryside has had a greater impact on home appliance companies. Rural areas are growth markets and are in the early stages of popularization. Consumers are highly price-sensitive. After the policy withdraws from the company, it has increased the difficulty of expansion."

Compared with the frequent attacks of bad factors, the current favorable factors in the domestic appliance companies are not without. The price of raw materials in the upper reaches of home appliances continues to decline, or it will give the household electrical appliance companies with a sudden increase in operating pressure a “puff room”.

“In the first half of 2013, the price of household electrical appliances fell in an all-round way. Although there was a periodical rebound, it rose but fell far behind for a long time.” Analyst Wu Chenhui pointed out that among the main raw materials for home appliances, the steel price has reached the bottom, and after the shock, the gold and silver are stable. Ten is expected to reproduce, but the huge excess capacity will limit its market development. The supply of copper increased, and the domestic copper price trend in the second half of the year will be weak. It will be expressed as the first suppression and then the increase, with an operating range of 50,000-5.5 million. The price performance of aluminum will be relatively stable, with little room for cost support, and pressure from rising supply and demand. The plastics market mainly fluctuates with the price of crude oil. In the second half of the year, the possibility of a drop in crude oil prices is high, and the price of plastics shows a weak shock.

Wu Xianjian believes that “we should be cautiously optimistic about the market trend in the second half of the year. No matter whether it is a national or regional home appliance chain enterprise, it will not repeat the negative growth of the large-scale comparable stores in the whole industry in 2012”.

Bottom wait for opportunity to rebound

The toughest period of the industry passed in 2012, but the decline in the home appliance industry in the second half of this year is not terrible. Therefore, consumers still have a lot of demand for high-quality home appliances, and there is no room for improvement in the quality of home appliances, technology, and materials for innovation.

After experiencing a short-term decline in the market, the current home appliance market is entering a new turning point: From a longer period of time (1 to 3 years), the end of the national consumption stimulus policy will help the home appliance market to return to competition. The normal track of autonomous operation is dominated by consumer-oriented, consumer-led, and home appliance manufacturers.

In view of this, Wu Xianjian believes that “the current government-led, enterprise-led consumption promotion” phase has come. At the same time, in the long run, new urbanization, the rise of the central and western regions, and residential cities with inland second- and third-tier cities and townships as the highlights of growth. In addition, consumer electronics, beauty appliances, home appliances, water appliances, and other technology-driven, smart energy-efficient home appliance consumer products that are personalized, high-end, quality, and fashionable will continue to be born. To upgrade consumption and huge consumer potential."

At the 2013 China (Chongqing) Regional Home Appliances Chain Development Summit Forum, Sun Jingyan, vice president of the White Group at Haier Group, pointed out that from the long-term trend of the home appliance market, there is no gaming relationship between the manufacturer and retailer and a fundamental conflict of interest because The referee that ultimately determines market share is the consumer. “There is only one purpose, to provide products and services that meet the needs of consumers' lives at the right price and in the right way.”

Wang Jinliang, director of the domestic market for Midea Group, points out that “the market growth in the future depends on whether the company can satisfy the value of consumers. At the same time, it must improve the efficiency of operations, from the factory to the consumers, whoever has the highest efficiency will have advantages”.

In recent years, the transformation and upgrading of China's home appliance industry has achieved initial success: the proportion of mid-to-high-end product sales has increased significantly, the once-lower-end market share has continuously decreased; the energy efficiency threshold of products has continued to increase, and the level of energy efficiency has been upgraded from five to three levels, and has always been In the dynamic rising track; air conditioners, refrigerators, rice cookers and other home appliances through structural adjustments, product prices have increased significantly, and the average price of some products has increased by about 10% to 20%.