2021 is a special year for China’s air conditioning market. According to AVC, after the rise of raw materials, double control of energy efficiency, repeated epidemics, and the diversion of the overall market by home-based machines of emerging categories, China’s air conditioning market was in a state of falling short of expectations and double decline in volume in 2021. The annual retail volume was 152.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.2%, and the retail volume was 46.89 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 8.7%.
Under the background of double drop in volume and volume, air conditioning enterprises urgently need to find new growth points. In the post epidemic era, health consumption has gradually become a new wind direction, and the air conditioning market is moving further and further on the road of quality and healthy product upgrading.
21st Century Business Herald reporter noted that since last year, many air-conditioning manufacturers, including Gree, Midea, oaks, TCL and so on, have successively focused on fresh air products. Fresh air conditioning, which focuses on health and green, is becoming a new battlefield for manufacturers.
fresh air market bucked the trend and turned better
Under the two-way promotion of consumers and brands, the fresh air conditioning market continues to “grow”. In fact, the emergence of fresh air conditioning is closely related to consumers’ concerns about air pollution. The World Health Organization survey shows that indoor air pollution has become one of the top ten threats to human health. Nearly half of the world’s people live in the polluted indoor environment.
Li Liang, R & D and planning director of oaks home appliance group, told reporters: “cooking fume and formaldehyde produced by decoration at home will make people feel uncomfortable indoors, even allergic, and even lead to death in more serious cases.” Li Liang said, “but the rainy season, extreme cold and heat, haze and other uncertain factors have caused a lot of trouble for opening windows for ventilation.”
Chen Shaolin, vice president of TCL industry and general manager of TCL air conditioning division, once said that at present, the mainstream air conditioning products in the market are only temperature and humidity regulators, which can not effectively solve consumers’ demand for indoor healthy air. “Air conditioning products have not broken through and innovated for more than ten years”. He believes that the next generation of air conditioners will be products with fresh air function.
The reporter learned that the biggest difference between fresh air conditioning and traditional air conditioning is that the newly added fresh air duct can be used for indoor and outdoor air exchange and filter the air entering the room at the same time; When the outdoor air is not good, fresh air conditioning can also realize air circulation and purification.
To a certain extent, the epidemic has enhanced consumers’ health awareness and demands. Fresh air air conditioners with healthy ventilation function meet consumers’ needs, quickly enter the market, and successfully set off product transformation and upgrading in the air conditioning market. According to the year-end summary of China’s air conditioning market in 2021, the scale of online fresh air conditioning in 2021 was 820 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 492.7%; The scale of offline fresh air conditioning was 1.91 billion, a year-on-year increase of 57.4%.
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Zeng Shikun, senior research manager of AVC’s large household appliances division, believes that from the perspective of industry development, under the dual carbon goal, the new wind industry dormant for many years is about to break out. Under the national strategic deployment of “striving to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutralization by 2060”, the construction industry vigorously explores the path to achieve the “double carbon” goal and develops new construction methods represented by green, intelligent and industrialization. With the continuous promotion of consumption upgrading, green building background and fine decoration policy, health and environmental protection appliances represented by fresh air system have ushered in a new round of outlets.
“The standardization and standardization process of fresh air industry is accelerating, and policies such as policy guidance and compulsory installation of fresh air system are gradually carried out in housing, education and other fields.” Zeng Shikun predicted that the market scale of the fresh air industry is expected to continue to improve.
pain points still to be solved
At the same time, major air-conditioning manufacturers have also accelerated the layout of the fresh air market. The reporter combed the fresh air market information in recent years and found that Gree launched a new generation of “new air” air conditioner in May 2020; Then Midea also launched the second generation series of fresh air airless air conditioner · Whisperer, fresh air airless comfort star se air conditioner, etc; On November 30, 2021, TCL air conditioner launched the new generation II of small blue wing of fresh air air conditioner, and put forward the goal of “no longer selling air conditioner without fresh air function in the Chinese market in the next five years” in February this year; On March 13, the first four seasons fresh air conditioner under oaks was officially launched, covering two series: muxinfeng and muxinfeng pro.
According to AVC data, as of the fourth quarter of 2021, Wuxi Online Offline Communication Information Technology Co.Ltd(300959) fresh air conditioning brands have reached 9, with 107 models on sale online and 99 offline; If the number of models on sale is taken as the standard, Gree, Midea, Haier, Hisense, TCL and Xiaomi are the main brands of fresh air conditioner among these competitors.
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However, facing the emerging product of fresh air conditioning, different enterprises have different playing methods and selling points. Xiaomi takes high air volume as its selling point, Hisense takes removing indoor pollution in decoration as its selling point, Midea focuses on intelligent function, and oaks promotes dual channel steady flow technology. However, Li Liang believes that old fresh air products have problems such as insufficient fresh air volume, insufficient comfort and insufficient intelligence to varying degrees; For example, he said, when some old fresh air products turn on the fresh air mode, the noise suddenly increases, causing trouble to users.
In addition, the instability of fresh air temperature is also one of the common pain points of fresh air conditioning at present. Li Liang further explained: “the traditional fresh air conditioning is actually that the fresh air conditioning is equipped with a ventilation technology; if you turn on the fresh air mode after turning on the refrigeration or heating mode, the newly entered outdoor air may affect the ambient temperature.” During the use in winter, this is a great hard injury.
The new wind industry entered China in the late 1990s. Although it has experienced more than ten years of development, the industry penetration rate is low, and the overall competition pattern of “big market, small enterprises” is presented. The industry competition is fierce, and the brand pattern is still unstable. From the competition of various brands on the fresh air conditioning track, it is not difficult to see that scientific and technological innovation is one of the fundamental driving forces to promote the transformation and upgrading of household appliance manufacturing industry, and it is also an important factor to determine whether the brand can open the gap with other competitive products.
At present, the level of consumer demand is gradually changing, and high-quality functions have become the main product market. Whether from the perspective of user needs or the pain points existing in the industry, it is necessary for air conditioning enterprises to study the technology research and development of fresh air conditioning and lead the evolution and development of the whole air conditioning industry.
