2022 is the fifth year for Li Jinbo to perform his duties as a deputy to the National People’s Congress. At the two sessions this year, he will bring five suggestions on setting up the “China engineers’ Day”, strengthening the aging transformation of smart homes, promoting the quality and efficiency improvement of the home appliance industry, promoting the construction of China’s life cycle database, and promoting the application of liquid helium free technology in the medical field.
Li Jinbo is currently the director of Innovation Research Institute of Midea Group Co.Ltd(000333) ( Midea Group Co.Ltd(000333) , SZ) household air conditioning division. Over the past five years, as a technology bull, Li Jinbo’s suggestions at the two sessions cover intellectual property protection, industrial Internet, energy conservation and emission reduction, green double carbon, national and industrial standards, etc. This year, his suggestions also focus on the aging transformation of smart home and how to improve the international competitiveness of home appliance industry.
The opening of the national two sessions is imminent, and Li Jinbo was also interviewed by the reporter of the daily economic news a few days ago. He told reporters that the “silver haired people” are a large group. In the past, the supply side failed to have a thorough insight into the real needs of the elderly, which may be an important reason for the slow progress of smart home aging transformation. Smart home aging is still in its infancy and needs more attention and resources.
Li Jinbo also mentioned that the epidemic objectively provides more opportunities for Chinese brands to break the brand situation in overseas markets. “Enterprises can truly solve the pain points of users through their own insight and innovation. This is our opportunity.”
more resources need to be invested to promote aging transformation
Li Jinbo was elected as a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress in 2018. This year is also the last year of his term of office. At this year’s two sessions, one of the five suggestions brought by Li Jinbo focused on the aging transformation of smart home.
The daily economic news learned that with the further deepening of the aging of the population, in the era of smart home, “aging” has become an unavoidable topic. According to the data of the seventh census in 2020, the population aged 60 and over in China is 264.02 million, accounting for 18.7% (of which the population aged 65 and over accounts for 13.5%). Compared with 2010, the proportion of people aged 60 and over increased by 5.44 percentage points.
Li Jinbo suggested that, in combination with the differences between urban and rural areas and local conditions, formulate standards for the aging transformation of families and establish a demonstration area for the aging transformation of smart homes; At the same time, establish and improve the management mechanism of “intelligent service-oriented social organizations”, encourage and support leading enterprises in various industries to take the lead in formulating aging design standards for intelligent products, so that more intelligent products can be more easily accepted and applied by the elderly.
On February 28, Li Jinbo further said in an interview with the reporter of the daily economic news that aging products have not received a good response in the market in recent years. This may be because many aging smart home appliances are often designed from the perspective of engineers, and the enterprise side has failed to thoroughly understand and insight into the real needs of the elderly. The development of aging products is still in its infancy. “In the past, we (enterprise side) paid more attention to universal products, focusing on the product needs of young or middle-aged people. We also need to pay more attention to aging products and promote them with more resources.”
Li Jinbo told reporters that at present, the aging transformation of smart home is still facing multiple challenges when it is actually implemented. Due to the elderly’s ability to pay, learn, accept and other reasons, the majority of the elderly need more time to accept intelligent technology products. In addition, there are differences in the popularity of intelligent products between urban and rural areas, which also makes the aging transformation slow. “Therefore, we should give full consideration to the needs of the elderly, not only develop intelligent products without influence, but also improve the exclusive services for the elderly. At the same time, we should involve more enterprises to jointly build an intelligent service-oriented society.”
Li Jinbo said that “user direct” is one of the strategic axes of beauty, and “silver haired group” is also an important user composition of beauty. Midea will invest corresponding resources in aging adaptation and actively lead the development of the “smart home aging adaptation” market under the guidance of national policies. “Beauty is about to happen.” He said.
The reporter of the daily economic news learned that Midea Group Co.Ltd(000333) actually began to cooperate with scientific research institutions and major universities to carry out research projects related to silver haired people seven years ago, and set up a silver hair product management company in 2020 to develop a series of exclusive products suitable for aging according to the pain points of the elderly in China, so as to help the elderly care at home.
overseas market ushers in the window of brand breaking
Recently, according to the data released by the national development and Reform Commission, China exported 387341 million household appliances in 2021, with an export volume of about US $98.72 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.1% and 22.3% respectively. In the past year, the epidemic has not curbed the demand of overseas markets.
Li Jinbo also mentioned in the “suggestions on promoting the improvement of quality and efficiency of the home appliance industry and enhancing international competitiveness”. Globally, for everyone’s electric products, the epidemic has only disrupted the consumption rhythm, and the retail scale is still growing. Driven by the housing economy, small household appliances have maintained high growth in the past two years. “Chinese enterprises are implementing the strategy of strengthening overseas markets and increasing investment. It is generally agreed in the industry that if they miss the window period, it will be twice as difficult for enterprises to enter the overseas market in the later stage when other enterprises win the first opportunity and the market concentration increases.”
Li Jinbo said that the increased mobility of brands during the epidemic meant that the pattern of brand solidification was easier to break. He suggested that the state introduce special support policies to support home appliance brands to deeply participate in global competition. For example, through financial subsidies, policy support, tax incentives and other means, we can help household electrical appliance enterprises get rid of the current difficulties such as high international logistics costs, increased tariffs and shortage of core parts supply, and provide financial, policy and other resource support for Chinese household electrical appliance products to enter the international high-end market.
So, returning to the Chinese household electrical appliance enterprises themselves, how can we achieve brand breaking in the overseas market? In this regard, in an interview with reporters on February 28, Li Jinbo answered with the example of the popularity of American u-window machines in the U.S. market. He said that American consumers have always been used to using window air conditioners, but the operating noise of window air conditioners is high. Americans believe that the traditional concept of the market will not be afraid of noise. But in fact, after in-depth research on users, Midea found that Americans also like quiet. Midea has thus created a U-shaped window machine that is the quietest and can solve the pain point of “once the window machine is installed, it can’t open the window”. This product sells very well in the American market. Generally, the price of air conditioner is more than $100, and the price of Midea window machine can be sold for $360. “Moreover, this product is pasted with Midea brand. The market is in short supply, and the product will be sold out immediately.”
Li Jinbo concluded that the breaking of the brand needs to be realized through innovation. “When the situation is grim, we have an opportunity to solve the real pain points of users through our own insight and innovation. Only by improving the added value of our products through innovation can we have a better way out.”
