Home Appliance Channels See Intensified Diversion
Traditional e-commerce, which has enjoyed continuous growth in the past, has suffered a decrease this year. According to AVC statistics, China's online home appliances retail sales value dropped by 5.3% year on year during the first half of the year, which was the first year-on-year decrease for the online market in recent years; the offline home appliances retail sales value also fell by over 10%.
Although pandemic control measures led to shrinking visitor numbers and more restrictions on store openings, leading enterprises all strengthened their terminal construction offline to reach customers directly: moreover, many benefited from customer volume in the house decoration sector and from new capabilities in offering home appliances and integrated solutions, with house-building material channels enjoying rapid growth.
In general, diversified and fragmented consumption by customers boosted the leading home appliances companies to implement a diversified channel layout.
On one hand, visitor flow gradually shifted to content platforms, and traditional e-commerce confronted a growth bottleneck: on the other, Tiktok e-commerce and Kwai e-commerce rose rapidly.
Meanwhile, online consumers looked for products with higher cost efficiency, and thus the medium-and low-end market presented strong growth: offline high-end products saw an increasing market share, presenting good prospects for profit margins. Under the current circumstances with high raw material costs enterprises were forced to focus on the offline market.
As long as customer demands and purchasing modes change with the times, evolution in the home appliances industry channels will never stop.
Asian HVAC&R Manufacturers Showcase Sustainable Solutions at IFA2022
IFA2022, the world’s largest consumer electronics show, was held from September 2 to 6 at Messe Berlin, Germany. It was the first face-to-face event in three years, attracting over 161,000 visitors, and offering IFA Virtual.
This year’s exhibits focused on sustainability in addition to smart home solutions. Seamless experiences using connectivity devices also attracted attention as a major topic. Among global leading 1,100 exhibitors from 46 regions, Asian manufacturers in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) industry also showcased sustainable and smart home solutions.
The next edition will be held from September 1 to 5, 2023.
LG’s Table-type Air Purifier Opens up a New Era of Personal Preferences
Under its theme of ‘Life, Reimagined,’ LG presented cutting-edge, human-centered innovations that bring new possibilities and experiences to daily life, such as its new table-type air purifier, the PuriCare Objet Collection Aero Furniture.
The LG Aero Furniture has a relatively small size that makes it perfect for smaller spaces, while users can choose the color of the unit’s base and the shape of its table-top to suit their personal tastes or match their home décor.
It also integrates convenient controls on its underside for powering the device on/off, and for managing its airflow modes and mood lighting features. A series of small indicators denote Wi-Fi connectivity, air quality, air flow strength, and upgrade status.
Users can also conveniently charge their smartphones, etc. via the table-top’s built-in wireless charger and create a pleasing atmosphere with the mood lighting feature by using the LG ThinQ app. Furthermore, it is designed with sustainability in mind, incorporating components fabricated from reusable plastic harvested from old appliances and electronics products, and shipping in packaging made from reusable materials.
The product greatly improves indoor air quality (IAQ) thanks to its multi-stage filtration of LG’s ultra-fine filter, dust collector filter, and deodorization filter as well as LG’s UVnano technology, which reduces the presence of viruses and bacteria on and around the Aero Furniture’s fan blades by up to 99.99%.
Samsung Smart Things Home Booth Showcases Future Home Living Vision
Samsung showcased its latest lineup in the Samsung Town exhibition hall, which consisted of various zones such as the SmartThings Life Zone and Everyday Sustainability Zone.
At its SmartThings Home Zone that featured a setup of seven real home spaces, such as a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen, Samsung showcased its vision for the future of home living.
SmartThings presents a fully integrated home experience by connecting not only Samsung products and services but also third-party devices such as lighting and window blinds to cater to people’s own lifestyles. SmartThings also helps consumers live a more sustainable life by suggesting ways in which users can save energy around the home by analyzing energy usage patterns and more.
For example, in the SmartThings bedroom, when the Good Morning Mode is activated, the curtains open and the lights turn on automatically. The air conditioner switches to auto mode and the Frame TV automatically turns on, displaying a photograph to ease the users into the morning.
In addition, in the exhibit spaces of SmartThings Home kitchen and laundry, bedroom, and outdoors, the visitors, using SmartThings AI Energy Mode, were able to experience Net Zero Home, a space where energy is produced, stored, managed, and consumed at home without creating any energy surplus or shortage.
Haier Showcases IoT Leadership with Its Multi Brands
On September 1 during the expo, Haier Europe held a press conference and Yannick Fierling, chief executive officer (CEO), showcased Haier’s ambition for even greater success as well as a range of brand-new products from its three brands: Haier, Candy, and Hoover.
According to his presentation, for the last seven years Haier has been rapidly growing in the European home appliance market, thanks to its study on customers’ behaviors that influences the designs of new products as well as constant updating of the software in existing appliances. This ‘zero distance’ feedback loop enables Haier to create premium products with a tailor-made experience with plans to launch more appliances in 2023 than ever.
In its 3,700 -m2 booth, Haier showcased a greater number of connected living experiences and scenarios achieved with its Candy, Hoover, and Haier brands. With the concept of ‘Connect to Extraordinary’, Haier demonstrated its growth strategy and leadership in Internet of Things (IoT) and connectivity. With ‘Simplify Your Day’, Candy presented increasingly connected solutions that respond in a simple and intuitive way to people’s needs. Within the ‘Quality for Life’ concept, Hoover presented high-performance products to achieve well-being and to improve the quality of life in each home environment.
TCL Features Smart Home Innovations that Inspire Greatness
TCL introduced its products that make home life more intelligent, environmentally friendly, connected, and enjoyable, with the theme of ‘Inspire Greatness’. Specifically, TCL’s FreshIN air conditioners, refrigerators, air purifiers, washing machines, and robot vacuums connect seamlessly, with TVs at the heart of its home ecosystem.
In addition, TCL launched more energy A-class products such as FreshIN air conditioners and washing machines to help its consumers develop a more sustainable lifestyle. TCL also offers design award-winning stylish products that blend into any home décor.
For example, TCL presented a new line of FreshIN series air conditioners in its home comfort zone. Unlike conventional air conditioners that circulate air inside the house, TCL FreshIN series features a proprietary FreshIN Plus fresh air system which helps transport the fresh air from the outdoors to the indoors with capacity of up to 60 m3/h thanks to its powerful air engine that helps increase the oxygen and humidity levels. TCL also showcased the award-winning air purifiers, breeva Pro 700P and 400P, which deliver better health and wellbeing.
Panasonic Unveils Solutions for Carbon Neutrality
Panasonic reaffirmed its commitment to promote carbon neutrality, further the circular economy, and introduced new products and services that aim to advance the well-being of future generations. Reflecting them, Panasonic’s booth design achieved a total reduction of 140 tons of CO2 emissions compared with its 2019 booth, equivalent to a reduction of 71%.
In this environmentally friendly booth, Panasonic introduced its most recent initiatives fitting its commitment, such as its air-to-water (ATW) heat pump water heaters. Panasonic’s Aquarea EcoFleX system connects an Aquarea ATW heat pump and an air-ducted unit with nanoe X technology to realize energy-efficient space heating, space cooling, cleaner air, and hot water heat recovery. The Aquarea EcoFleX control system is equipped with Wi-Fi as standard with adapters included for instant connectivity via Panasonic’s Comfort Cloud app which enables intelligent control and continuous monitoring of energy consumption by the user. A remote maintenance monitoring system, Aquarea Service Cloud, allows the service technician or the installer to look at the heat pump system before any downtime occurs. When operated with green electricity, Aquarea ATW heat pumps create virtually no CO2 emissions during operations, as up to 80% of the required heat energy is taken from ambient air.
UK Supports Development of Innovative Heat Pump Solutions
The UK government set up the Heat Pump Ready Programme, part of the £1 billion (about US$ 1.1 billion) Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which supports the development of innovative solutions across the heat pump sector. Heat pumps are a key solution for decarbonizing homes and will be critical for meeting the UK’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050.
The program consists of Streams 1 to 3.
Stream 1, solutions for high-density heat pump deployment, will support the development and trial of solutions and methodologies for the optimized deployment of domestic heat pumps at high-density. Stream 1: Phase 1 has awarded a total of more than £2 million (about US$ 2.2 million) to 11 projects across Great Britain.
Stream 2, developing tools and technology, will support the development of tools, technology, and processes to overcome specific barriers to domestic heat pump deployment. Stream 2 has awarded a total of more than £15 million (about US$ 16.8 million) of grant funding to 24 projects across Great Britain. Stream 2 projects will be completed by February 26, 2025.
Stream 3, trial support and learning, will provide support to ensure knowledge transfer and shared learning across the Heat Pump Ready Programme. This stream will provide support to the Stream 1 projects, joining-up Stream 2 technology and tools with the Stream 1 projects where relevant and establishing working groups to collaborate on shared elements of deployment.
The UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has appointed the Carbon Trust to deliver the Stream 3 contract, up to a value of £5 million (about US$ 5.6 million) in funding to provide the delivery of three work packages. The Carbon Trust will be delivering against two overarching objectives. Stream 3 will be delivered through one contract over two Phases.
Phase 1 will run from July 2022 to March 2023. It will focus on carrying out some initial activities under three work packages, as well as further developing a delivery plan for Phase 2. Phase 2 will run from April 2023 to March 2025 and focus on the delivery of activities under each work package.
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Post time: Nov-07-2022
