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Air conditioning companies are collectively facing a 'trial' this year.
Publish Time:
2021-06-23
June 30th will be the last day that low-efficiency air conditioners under the old national standard are allowed to be listed and sold. According to relevant national standards, from July 1, 2021, all fixed-frequency air conditioners with low efficiency and high power consumption produced before July 1, 2020, and variable-frequency air conditioners with three-level energy efficiency will no longer be allowed to be listed and sold; at the same time, since July 1 last year, all air conditioners produced by enterprises must meet the requirements of the new national energy efficiency standard.
June 30th will be the last day that low-efficiency air conditioners under the old national energy efficiency standard are allowed to be listed and sold.
According to relevant national standards, from July 1, 2021, all low-efficiency, high-power consumption fixed-frequency air conditioners produced before July 1, 2020, and three-level energy efficiency variable-frequency air conditioners will no longer be allowed to be listed and sold; at the same time, from July 1 last year, all air conditioners produced by enterprises must meet the requirements of the new national energy efficiency standard.
Now, as the one-year-old inventory clearance is nearing its end, the air conditioning industry has not ushered in a new wave of consumption and a new industrial situation caused by the "new energy efficiency upgrade and the withdrawal of old energy efficiency". On the contrary, due to the continued surge in various bulk raw material prices and the sluggish demand in the first-tier market, the air conditioning industry has once again fallen into the largest "low point" and "quagmire" in nearly five years.
Many air conditioner manufacturers have frankly stated in communication with the home appliance industry: Until today, it can be said that air conditioner companies are "undergoing tribulation" this year, of course, how long this cycle will last is hard to say. It could be one year, or it could be three to five years, or even longer. In the future, only two points can be certain:
First, the era and space in which many miscellaneous brands and speculators in the air conditioning market have felt that "making money is easy" for many years has come to an end; second, the operating pattern among the top players is not static, there is continuous internal differentiation, and there will be cross-border entry of other industry giants as new entrants.
Variable: The replacement of old and new energy efficiency has not brought a turning point
At the beginning of 2020, many air conditioning companies and businesses had high hopes for the newly promulgated national energy efficiency standard. It was believed that this significant improvement in product energy efficiency, and the merger and unification of the energy efficiency assessment standards for variable frequency and fixed frequency, would ultimately raise the industry threshold, thereby achieving a cleaning of speculators and those who engage in fraudulent activities.
However, due to the post-event supervision and individual spot checks of the energy efficiency system, many enterprises did not feel more pressure on the implementation of the mandatory standard for new air conditioner energy efficiency. On the contrary, this has become a reason for many air conditioning manufacturers to hype up sales in the terminal market. In fact, in the air conditioning market, as long as the air conditioners with a significantly lower ex-factory price than the cost price are basically non-standard machines, or machines with inferior materials and workmanship. However, they are still not afraid of the strict management of the new energy efficiency standards.
To this day, the promulgation and implementation of the new national energy efficiency standard has not promoted the improvement of the industry threshold, and a large number of speculators are still active; a sudden round of continuous substantial increases in the cost of bulk raw materials, which has led to the instability and untimeliness of the supply of major components, has brought a series of continuous and changing troubles to the production and manufacturing of downstream air conditioners and market operations: periodic price adjustments, untimely supply of main products, and shortages of many companies' best-selling models have resulted in the grabbing of market share.
However, what is most unexpected and even troubling for air conditioning manufacturers is that the demand in the first-tier market has completely normalized. From after the Spring Festival to the hot March and red April, to the silver May, and even the 618 mid-year promotion, the shipment volume of air conditioners in the terminal market has not shown the expected significant increase. Behind this situation, many businesses who seized the opportunity to stock up at low prices have felt pressure.
Confusion: The value of hardware remains, and industrial reshuffling is accelerating
To the relief of all manufacturers, the value of air conditioning as hardware has never faced the embarrassment of being "replaced" or "impacted" since its inception a century ago. Although the retail scale of the air conditioning market has been in a turbulent downward channel in the past five years, both large enterprises at the top and small and micro enterprises at the bottom are facing great pressure on growth and operations. However, on the other hand, the number of cross-border newcomers entering the air conditioning category continues to grow.
The stable market demand for air conditioning products, the OEM business in the global market, and the improvement of living conditions and housing structure have resulted in the common occurrence of three or even four air conditioners per household. In addition, we should also see that the new demand for air conditioners from universities, middle schools, and other educational institutions and commercial units is also increasing. These are important forces supporting the overall steady development of the air conditioning market scale.
Similarly, in recent years, in addition to the existing 1 hp, 1.5 hp, 2 hp, and 3 hp household air conditioners, there have also been multi-unit household central air conditioners, and 5 hp and 7 hp commercial air conditioners, as well as mobile air conditioners for kitchens and bathrooms. The emergence of these new segmented demands, coupled with the "replacement" cycle that households have already entered, ultimately results in the hardware scale of air conditioners remaining within a stable range.
Therefore, as the largest and most profitable category in the home appliance industry, air conditioners have been favored by a large number of Internet companies, smart home businesses, and emerging capital in the past 10 years. However, what are the difficulties in the air conditioning market in recent years? Why do so many air conditioning companies "complain year after year" but few are willing to actively withdraw from the competition in this market?
The reason is simple: First, the so-called hardship in the air conditioning market is because compared with 10 years ago or even longer, the air conditioning market is indeed fiercely competitive, and the profitability of enterprises is continuously declining. However, compared with other categories of home appliances, there is still room; second, the so-called difficulty in the air conditioning market is mainly due to the large external operational risks, the large internal reshuffling efforts, and the ultimate compression of speculation space, but it has not disappeared.
No matter how the market changes, all air conditioning companies must realize that the speed and process of market reshuffling is accelerating. Large enterprises have launched sub-brands to increase sales, while small and medium-sized enterprises have begun to speculate to survive, and some external enterprises have frequently cross-border fighting for orders, which will naturally further accelerate the intensity and fierceness of competition in the first-tier market.
Undergoing Tribulation: Opportunities come from change, change is full of unknowns
It is said that all market opportunities come from change. But for the air conditioning industry, future changes are full of unknowns and variables. Among them, in the view of the home appliance industry, the future variables in the air conditioning industry mainly exist in three aspects:
First, the reshuffling efforts of giants in the first-tier market will exceed external expectations. However, it is difficult to judge the trend at present. In recent years, the leading group of the air conditioning industry, Midea, Gree, and Haier, have been relatively stable. Although Aux once became the biggest variable, it still did not shake the pattern's fission, and now it has also launched a sub-brand, Tianpai, to grab orders. Similarly, Xiaomi has been in the air conditioning industry for several years and has now become a nobody. However, the competition among the top three will not stop, especially the battle between Gree and Midea, and Haier's breakthrough, has been going on. This "arm wrestling" among leading enterprises will ultimately accelerate the difficulty of market competition for other enterprises and the improvement of industry standards.
Second, the growth of hardware scale will show a clear ceiling, and there is not much room and time for further increase in air conditioning. In this case, all air conditioning manufacturers are aware of the need to transition from quantitative growth to qualitative change. However, how to improve operations is clearly not simply selling more high-end products, more household central air conditioners, and more government procurement and government subsidy projects. It is still necessary to invest in and deploy product solutions and differentiated sub-functional products. The core point is that only through different products, different strategies, and different functional positioning can we find the path and model of high-quality development. The transformation from air conditioning to comfortable air is already exploring the way.
Third, the integration and changes in the industrial chain will exceed external expectations, and the original old systems will face elimination or disintegration. In the past five or six years, the pace and speed of changes in the air conditioning industry have exceeded the experience and models accumulated in the previous 30 years. The biggest change is not the fragmentation of downstream retail channels, but the further concentration of upstream supply chains, and the greater efficiency and scalability of midstream manufacturing, ultimately leading to the industry's impact being the acceleration of resource concentration to giants, while business rules, competitive strategies, and business models will all undergo a series of continuous changes due to the advent of the user-driven era. This means that air conditioning companies must learn to restructure their own systems and models, but how to build them is a new challenge.
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