Domestic refrigerator industry is expected to "warm up" next year

Affected by the economic downward pressure, the low activity of commercial housing sales, and the lack of policies, the domestic refrigerator market is still “in the doldrums” in 2015. It is expected that retail sales will be “negative growth” year-on-year. This is what the reporter learned from the 2015 (eighth) China Refrigerator Industry Conference. However, according to Zhong Yikang’s forecast, the domestic refrigerator market may “turn up” and “recover” in 2016, and it is expected that retail sales will achieve a slight “positive growth”.

According to data from Zhongkang, in the first 10 months of this year, the domestic retail volume of the refrigerator market was 26.13 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.6%; retail sales were 69.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.0%. It is expected that the annual retail sales of the refrigerator market will be negative year-on-year, and the overall scale will remain unchanged from 2012. This is also the fourth time since 2012, the domestic refrigerator market has experienced a year-on-year decline for the third time, but the growth rate has rebounded slightly from 2014. In contrast, the online market maintained rapid growth. The retail sales of the 2015 refrigerator online market are expected to exceed 10 billion yuan for the first time, accounting for 13.4% of the total.

According to Zhong Yikang's forecast, the competition in the refrigerator industry in 2016 will remain fierce, and the big brands will still be able to support them with scale advantages. Small and medium-sized brands will face the test of survival as the price competition intensifies. However, in 2016, the domestic refrigerator market may “turn up” and “recover”, and it is expected that the retail sales will achieve a slight positive growth.

The reporter learned from the annual meeting that there were two things worth noticing in the domestic refrigerator industry in 2015. The first was the newly revised “Limits and energy efficiency ratings for household refrigerators”, which will be released on October 1, 2016. Formally implemented; Second, the brewing of the implementation of the "leader" system of household electrical appliances energy efficiency regulations issued. According to the new refrigerator energy efficiency standard, the integrated power consumption of the refrigerator is closer to the actual power consumption of the user, and the energy-saving ability of the product in actual use is more important.

Chen Gang, deputy secretary-general of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, pointed out that the overall scale of the refrigerator market is unlikely to expand significantly and has entered a relatively stable development stage. Chen Gang believes that the introduction and implementation of new policies on refrigerators are both opportunities and challenges for companies. If handled properly, this opportunity will also help enterprises to further promote the extensive application of advanced energy-saving technologies, support the upgrading of industrial structure, and enhance the competitiveness of China's refrigerator products in the international market.

At the annual meeting, the Top10 Energy Saving Center in Switzerland and China Electronics News jointly released the “2015 Top Energy Efficiency Refrigerator TOP10 List” to further enhance consumer awareness of energy conservation and environmental protection and lead the refrigerator industry toward a more energy-efficient development. In this regard, Zheng Tan, director of Switzerland's Top Energy Conservation Center in China, said that this shows that with the increasing efficiency standards in China, some domestic brands in the international market have reached the leading level of energy efficiency. The energy efficiency rankings released this time, do not consider the durability of the refrigerator, ease of use, noise and other common evaluation indicators, which has also become one of the reasons for the foreign brand name offensive. For some brands that have not passed on, their brand-name power consumption per unit volume is high, and Zheng Tan emphasizes that this is inseparable from the strategy adopted by the aforementioned companies to implement new energy efficiency standards next year. According to Zheng Tan, the main purpose of such design is to promote the application and popularization of the best energy-saving technologies. In the relative saturation of the market and the increasingly fierce competition, advocate the technology leader as the king.

People in the industry believe that the publication of the list of energy-efficient companies is conducive to the market leading role of benchmarking companies and products, and will make due contributions to the realization of the "Chinese dream" of green mountains and green mountains.