I wonder if you have noticed that since 2025, there have been constant hot searches in the home appliance industry. After Haier CEO Zhou Yunjie became famous, he has been on the hot searches 20 times in 20 days.

Gree changed its store to "Dong Mingzhu Health Home" and once again criticized its competitors, causing heated discussions. Midea CEO Fang Hongbo silently joined hands with Huawei to sell Xiaomi's stocks and force employees to get off work;

Finally, don’t forget that there is another hot man who is eyeing the home appliance industry and has a hot search physique.

Maybe someone in front of the screen would say that it is not a regular operation for Dong Mingzhu and a hot man to be on hot searches, but think about it, who is the person on Haier who often appears in the news? It must be Zhang Ruimin and Haier brothers.

When a consumer-oriented industry frequently appears on the news homepage and attracts consumer attention, this means that the industry is about to start rolling. If it is placed in the home appliance industry, it is to add rolls.

In 2024, the scale of China's home appliance retail sales reached 907.1 billion yuan with the support of the country, which is a new retail record after 891 billion yuan in 2019.

For the home appliance industry, the national subsidy is not only a concentrated explosion of market demand, but also an early overdraft of market demand. Therefore, national supplements are like a piece of cake. Whoever can grab enough will have nutrition to survive the next cycle of sluggish demand. On the contrary, if the market reacts slowly, it may be eaten by the head. In 2025, the home appliance industry will not be able to do so.

In fact, the home appliance industry is one of the most serious industries. It started in the 1990s. At that time, the stars in the home appliance industry were Chunlan Air Conditioners. In 1994, 380 air conditioners were sold nationwide, and Chunlan accounted for 150, with a market share of nearly 40%. At that time, Chunlan Air Conditioners even had the confidence to build cars in 1997, but unfortunately it had been 20 years since the cross-border crossing.

In addition to Chunlan, the well-known companies in the home appliance industry at that time were Huabao, Kelong, Baiju, Weili, etc., but in the rounds of competition in the market, they gradually lost their competitiveness, some went bankrupt, and some were acquired. We often say that the new energy vehicle industry is in the new energy vehicle industry, but the knockout round of new energy vehicles has just begun.

Today's home appliance brands have survived from intra-roll, including Midea, Gree, Haier, Hisense, and TCL. They have passed the technology and the market cycle before they have become giants in the global home appliance industry.

In the white goods industry, the most influential ones are Midea, Haier and Gree, who are known as the three giants of white goods.

Let’s first popularize science. White household appliances are appliances that replace people’s labor and improve the quality of life of the family, including air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, kitchen appliances, fans, water heaters, etc. Among them, air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines are particularly important. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, the sales of these three items reached 455.3 billion yuan in 2024, and even the majority of home appliances, the proportion will exceed 50%.

If you want to talk about the number one giant in China's white goods, it is undoubtedly Midea, with wide product coverage and high sales.

In nine categories including air conditioners, microwave ovens, ovens, induction cookers, and electric fans, Midea is the first, especially air conditioners. Midea's offline and online market share is 35.9% and 33.2% respectively.

Online, Midea washing machine has the highest market share, but refrigerators are only second, but in the more important offline market, Midea refrigerators and washing machines are both second.

In the domestic market, the number one company in refrigerators and washing machines happens to be the same company.

That's right, it's Haier.

In addition to refrigerators and washing machines, Haier is also leading in the field of water heaters. Haier's characteristics in the field of home appliances are high-end, with Casarti, a very successful high-end brand in China, and also home appliance luxury brands like Fisher & Paykel.

Although it sounds like I am advertising Haier and Midea here, no, these are the real market status, and domestic home appliances are very strong around the world.

Gree may be the most anxious at the moment. Although the annual report for 2024 was not released at the time of writing, in the first three quarters, Gree's revenue was 146.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.34%. In terms of revenue, Gree is the lowest, and the air conditioning business is very important to Gree. In the first three quarters of 2024, the proportion is close to 80% of the total revenue. Even so, Gree is still suppressed by Midea in the domestic market, and there are also hot men chasing them closely behind.

Now, if you want to talk about a hot man, you should have guessed who it is, and no one thinks that the old fox is talking about Wang Teng.

In recent years, Xiaomi's home appliance business can be said to be coming in full swing. According to Xiaomi's annual report, Xiaomi's air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines shipments last year were 6.8 million, 2.7 million and 1.9 million respectively. This figure does not seem to be high, but it has grown too fast, so friendly companies have to guard against it.

In 2023, the growth rates of these three major items are 49%, 100%, and 24%, respectively, and in 2024, they are 50%, 30% and 45% respectively.

In addition, Xiaomi has also increased its investment in home appliances. Xiaomi's currently under construction will be put into use in November this year, mainly for the production of air conditioners.

The information about Midea, Haier, Gree and Xiaomi has been briefly introduced. We can compare air conditioning, refrigerator and washing machines to a triathlon. These four are the biggest favorites to win the championship. Midea is the defending champion and the most versatile. Xiaomi is the best newcomer. Gree is more scientific and competitive. Their competition can be specifically focused on the products.

The most popular electrical appliances are now air conditioning products, which are the majority of the home appliance industry, with sales accounting for 22.3% of the entire home appliance.

When preparing this article to compare products, Lao Hu discovered an interesting phenomenon. In order to highlight power saving, Xiaomi's air conditioners include Giant Power Saving and Giant Power Saving Pro. Midea's air conditioners include Cool Power Saving, Cool Power Saving Pro, and even Cool Power Saving Ultra. Xiaomi launched the up-out air conditioner last year to block the cold wind and blow up, solving the problem of cold wind direct blowing. Midea has no wind and no wind sense Pro, and solves the problem of cold wind direct blowing through micro-hole dispersion.

So you see, the business war is so simple and unpretentious.

Strategically, Midea also has a sub-brand Hualing, which is used to fight price wars, which can be used to deal with Xiaomi's price wars. By the way, Hualing Air Conditioner also has super power saving and super power saving Pro.

Back to Gree, why does the old fox say that Gree is the most anxious?

Before 2020, Gree could still say that it was the leader of the market, but after 2020, Midea gradually left Gree behind, and behind Gree, Xiaomi, which has an increasingly high market share.

Although its own failure is terrible, the rise of its competitors is even more anxious. Gree needs to change its business strategy, so it has the brand "Dong Mingzhu Health Home".

Many people online complain about Dong Mingzhu’s health home, but Old Hu wants to say something for Gree here.

Gree has always emphasized the "core technology" of air conditioners, which has brought Gree a brand premium. However, in recent years (2020-2023), Gree's revenue growth rate (20.23%) lags behind Midea (30.8%) and Haier (30.76%), indicating that everyone no longer buys the "core technology".

Gree needs to find a new product marketing point, so it focuses on healthy home appliances.

First of all, Gree's advertising slogan was "Gree-made air conditioners", but now it has been changed to "Gree-made electrical appliances". It can be seen here that Gree wants to have diversified business, rather than limited to air conditioners.

Secondly, the core technology of air conditioners is compressors, but the iteration of compressor technology is slow, so you will find that in recent years, many home appliance products have been developing in a healthy direction, such as fresh air air conditioners that can sterilize and dust removal, such as maternal and infant-grade home appliance certified products.

The concept of healthy home comes out (how far away from home appliances + health = healthy home). As for the three words Dong Mingzhu added to the front of the healthy home, Lao Hu's understanding is that since the Gree brand is not good, it is better to replace it with Dong Mingzhu with traffic. In terms of corporate management and products, her image is still positive.

Although Dong Mingzhu's outspokenness has been criticized by many people, Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun are representatives in the field of entrepreneur IP.

Recently, Haier CEO Zhou Yunjie also "takes through" Lei Jun's popularity and has entered this track. He has gained millions of fans in a short period of time on social platforms. Sometimes he is doing food broadcasts, and sometimes he is a domineering president inspecting employees. It can be seen that there are many copies of the market now.

Back to Haier's products, Haier air conditioners also have power-saving series, called Clean Power Saving. The Clean Power Saving Series focuses on a big mess, including Clean Power Saving Edition, Clean Power Saving Plus True Saving Edition, and Clean Power Saving Pro True Clean Edition.

So Lao Hu went to find other brands of air conditioners to save power. Hisense has easy power saving, TCL has real power saving, real power saving Pro, real power saving MAX, and even real power saving SE...

Gree and Aux are exceptions. Gree's are called the Power Saving Prince and the Power Saving Prince Pro, and Aux is the Power Saving Man and the Power Saving Man Pro.

How do these air conditioners save power? We compared Midea (Cool Power Saving Ultra), Haier (Clean Power Saving Pro True Clean Version), Xiaomi (Xiaomi Ju Power Saving Pro) and Gree (Energy Saving Prince Pro). Compared with APF values, Cool Power Saving Ultra is 5.8, Net Power Saving Pro is 6.10, Giant Power Saving Pro is 5.65, and Energy Saving Prince Pro is 5.33.

To give a popular science, this APF is the annual energy consumption efficiency (Annual Performance Factor). Simply put, it is how much heat can be exchanged in two outdoor and indoor spaces for every unit of heat consumed by the air conditioner. This includes two situations: heating in winter and cooling in summer.

The level of APF is closely related to the working efficiency of hardware such as air conditioning compressors, heat exchangers, inverters, etc., and also related to the size of the match. If the match increases, the APF will be relatively reduced.

But on the other hand, air conditioners are no longer limited to hardware technology. These air conditioners mention deep learning or AI technology on the product details page. By analyzing big data, combining the user's location, climate conditions, room area and usage habits, intelligent adjustment and control algorithms, they implement more appropriate power saving strategies.

Those who often win the Olympic weightlifting gold medals know that when you compete, your own strength is important, but strategy is also important. Sometimes you have to adjust the reported weight in real time according to changes in the field, try to let the opponent lift it first, and you will get the initiative.

Haier's market is leading washing machines and refrigerators. Among these two categories, Xiaomi's growth rate is still very fast. Haier focuses on a soldier to block the water and soil.

For example, the Xiaomi dual-zone washing machine that Xiaomi became popular last year was extremely popular because it washed the outerwear and underwear separately, and Haier also took advantage of the popularity of CEO Zhou Yunjie to launch this lazy washing machine with one more drum than Xiaomi. The outerwear, underwear and socks can be washed separately.

Even the first batch of this washing machine was delivered to users, Haier also held a delivery ceremony, and Zhou Yunjie was present in person to deliver it to users.

Lei Jun saw this wave of operation and called him an expert. Someone crossed the river by feeling the stones, and Mr. Zhou crossed the river by feeling the stones.

It should be noted that the brand of this lazy washing machine is neither Haier nor Casarte, but the leader who focuses on young and Internet layout. This brand is a brand that Haier and Xiaomi directly compete.

Midea has more troops, including Hualing, which focuses on air conditioning, Rongshida, which focuses on refrigerators, and Little Swan, which focuses on washing machines.

So we can see that there are so many home appliances industry. Midea and Haier and Gree are based on higher-end prices. Facing Xiaomi's cost-effective Mijia, it uses sub-brands to deal with it. In high-end home appliances worth tens of thousands of yuan, Midea and Haier also have COLMO and Casarti respectively.

Using different brands in high, medium and low to fully occupy the market, this is the strength of the top home appliance brands that have been rolled out for 30 years. Xiaomi, the king of bookkeeping, may have to spend more effort in the home appliance industry.

However, Xiaomi also has its own advantages. First of all, it is marketing. Xiaomi’s product technical strength is not the strongest, but how to pass on product characteristics to users? Xiaomi uses giant power saving and air conditioning and dual-zone washing machines to give the home appliance industry the same.

Secondly, Xiaomi’s cost-effectiveness is deeply rooted in people’s hearts. The data here can be directly reflected. In the 2024 financial report, Xiaomi’s gross profit margin of IoT and daily necessities was 20.3%, Haier’s gross profit margin of domestic home appliances was 29.79%, Midea’s smart home was 29.97%, and Gree’s main air-conditioning business had a gross profit margin of 37.04% in 2023.

There is also the key smart home. Midea Financial Report divides home appliances into smart homes. Haier’s home appliance business is in the listed company Haier Smart Home. Nowadays, the importance of smart homes is an industry consensus.

But after years of development, Mijia's smart home can be said to have occupied the minds of users. When it comes to smart homes, many people first think of Xiaomi, and they also play the entire ecosystem of human, car and home.

Midea Selection cooperated with Huawei Hongmeng in 2021. Through its own hardware products and Huawei's ecological construction capabilities, it can also be the entire ecosystem of people, cars and homes, but here, it also has a name called full-scene smart life.

There are also key AI models that bring a better interactive experience and a more comfortable user experience to the entire smart home. We will introduce this to you in combination with the product in the future.

Marketing, cost-effectiveness, and smart home appliances are all Xiaomi’s confidence in the home appliance industry. Midea Haier Gree has accumulated many years of technology, and the collision of intra-rolling in the future will definitely be very interesting.

Nowadays, the national subsidy policy is accelerating market competition. The application of smart home and AI models will also be a revolution in the home appliance industry. There is also the catfish of Xiaomi. The intra-roll of the home appliance industry must be very exciting. In the incremental market, start-ups often peck at each other. In the already mature stock market of home appliances, the intra-roll is the battle of the gods.

But such competition is a good thing for us consumers.

References:

Midea, Gree, Haier, Xiaomi Financial Reports

Aowei Cloud Network: Annual Report Topic | 2024 China Home Appliance Market Summary: 907.1 billion! High growth and cold thinking in 2024

Yuanchuan Research Institute: The two heroes of the ups and downs: Why is the beauty 240 billion more expensive than Gree?

Financial World: Clearing up is just the beginning, Lei Jun and Fang Hongbo will have a battle