In recent years, Chinese appliance companies have stepped up the pace of "going to sea", and overseas construction and acquisitions have promoted the brand awareness in the global market.This road, the Chinese electrical appliances enterprise has experienced from OEM OEM to own brand transition, the lesson also gained experience, in the face of policy and the environment are different foreign markets, home appliance enterprises also need to further strengthen its comprehensive strength, to meet the challenges of the unknown.

Quicken "go out"

In this year's international consumer electronics exhibition, exhibitors more than 1300 registered in China, nearly a third, again set a new record of Chinese enterprises participating quantity including haier, TCL, hisense, konka, skyworth, changhong, the Chinese electrical appliances enterprise to bring the latest technology of home appliance products, such as TCL, huaxing photoelectric with large size, 8 k ultra clear leading products such as independent exhibition for the first time, as well as the latest OLED TV skyworth.

Li dongsheng, chairman and chief executive of TCL, said at the time that Chinese companies have had significant improvements in scale, quality of products, especially technological innovation.From "made in China" to "created in China", from leading industry development to technological innovation, Chinese enterprises are now plays an increasingly important role in the field of global consumer electronics.

In recent years, Chinese appliance companies have accelerated the pace of the sea, and overseas construction and acquisitions have been combined.In the domestic home appliance market downturn, under the background of weak demand, headed by haier, midea, hisense, the Chinese electrical appliances enterprise in succession from began in June 2016 to enter the international development strategy.Among them, haier's overseas establishment has attracted wide attention, and haier has made it clear that it is based primarily on global strategic considerations in the United States.In factories overseas, "reduces the cost of supply chain, as the global manufacturing layout is constantly improving, haier products in the global logistics speed, effectively shorten the cycle of capital turnover, enhance the competitiveness of haier's global manufacturing".

In addition to haier, haixin has also invested in the U.S. to expand the U.S. market., hisense has said, "we also have to go to America to build the factory planning, mainly in order to close to the market. This can shorten the development cycle, supply cycle, can ensure the competitiveness of products in the market".

Meanwhile, Chinese appliance companies have launched several overseas acquisitions in recent years.From TCL, take the lead in 2004 to buy the French Thomson TV business start, the Chinese electrical appliances enterprise purchase international home appliance manufacturers faster and faster, with ever greater, especially in haier, midea, hisense such in a leading position in the field of related domestic home appliance enterprises.

In 2011, haier acquired sanyo, a traditional Japanese home appliance company, and in 2012 acquired the world's top kitchen appliance company, fisher & paykel.In 2015, skyworth acquired the TV business of mez, a German television maker, and haixin acquired sharp's production line in Mexico.In 2016, haier bought for $5.5 billion of the world's top general electric home appliances enterprises, after the three foreign acquisitions of beauty, including Toshiba white goods business, Italy, central air conditioning enterprise Clivet 80% stake and a 81.04% stake in Germany robot manufacturing enterprise library card, the same year by the end of TCL and acquired the Novatel Wireless MIFI business of the company.

Stick a card history

Chinese home appliance companies have gone through the process of transforming from a label to a brand.

China household appliances is using the OEM model developed rapidly since reform and opening up of emerging industries, formed more than 200 billion yuan in the market scale of mature industry, China became the world's largest home appliance manufacturing base.In the 1990s, many famous international home appliance multinationals moved production to China, making China the "big shop" for global home appliance production.From GE to LG, panasonic and Toshiba, from Siemens to electrolux, from philips to whirlpool, almost all of the world home appliance brand products in China, or through a joint venture with the Chinese production, or by the Chinese manufacturer to OEM.According to incomplete statistics, nearly 95 percent of the world's top 500 appliance companies have established partnerships with China's home appliance industry.

Through the production of stickers, the scale of China's domestic electricity industry has been expanded rapidly, and the average annual growth of Chinese appliance exports is 47 percent, nearly a billion yuan.Is the most obvious and open secret galanz, the company is in 1992 to introduce the most advanced Toshiba microwave oven production line and began to follow the example of learning, after just a few years beyond the Toshiba, abroad nearly hundred companies provide OEM production, microwave "made in China" microwave basic monopolized the market in Europe.

But the production of stickers is not a long-term solution, and the production of stickers has also brought a painful lesson to Chinese home appliance companies.In November 2003, TCL group signed a formal agreement with Thomson of France to restructure the two companies' color TV and DVD business. The joint venture was named TCL Thomson, or TTE.As a result, TCL became the world's largest manufacturer of color televisions, with a loss of 254 million euros for its color TV and DVD business.However, the acquisition not only gave TCL an opportunity in the European and European markets, but also brought huge losses to TCL.

"It was the hardest time for TCL, and we were really blind and confident when the acquisition started."Mr. Li recalled the deal.He attributes the failure of the acquisition to the rush to make and internationalise the talent pool, which epitomizes the search for a Chinese home appliance brand.

In the past few years, the Chinese household appliance brand has been largely separated from the era of mere generation, and the development of independent design has become the mainstream of the industry.At the same time, under the opportunities brought about by the "area" initiative, the Chinese electrical appliances brand further overseas markets as the layout of the center of gravity, and improve their ability of localized operation.Today, China is home to the global market for home appliances, accounting for about 37 per cent of global exports in 2014.

Road to the royal road to learning

Self-development has laid a more solid foundation for the export of Chinese appliance enterprises.

Reported that haier praise repeatedly in Russia, Russia's largest home appliance chain channel MVIDEO year-end awards, according to the results of haier Italian three-door refrigerators with a good reputation in the consumer groups and high sales won the annual best product design award at a stroke, and become "Russia" the Windows of the home appliance MVIDEO channels can provide high-end refrigerator brand.The move means that in the Russian fridge market, haier's fridge has received heavyweight recognition for original products invented by users' needs.Sales in Russia have quadrupled in the past three months, according to data from haier's refrigerators.In the americas, haier air conditioning produces the quietest air conditioner and has been rated the consumer's most desirable product for six consecutive years.In Europe, haier refrigerator is certified by Germany's most stringent and highest-rated VDE - QTM.

Hisense sponsored by the European championship for the first time last year, although can't say that foreign customers can fully accept hisense, but consumers of its cognition, will be labeled as TV.Because haixin TV is the third most sold in the world, the label is actually very beneficial, helping consumers to better understand haixin.Have the personage inside course of study thinks, hisense is a litmus test, through the European championship opened the good situation, can't say that, but at least the hisense to find the way to European consumers.

But the results do not represent the future.Industry watchers HongShiBin pointed out that the development of Chinese home appliance brand for so many years since, from immature to mature to today's breakneck expansion, has summarized many experience, also has a comprehensive strength.The current global integration is a big trend, in this context, the Chinese electrical appliances enterprise want to in the world only have "certain" comprehensive strength is not enough, want to go further, fly higher, also need to further strengthen their comprehensive strength, after all the foreign market and domestic market environment, the policy is different, the challenges faced by is also unknown, to have a "very strong" comprehensive manufacturing capabilities, the promotion ability, product strength to shine on the world stage.

"There is a big difference between the international market and the local market, the international market heavy technology, the domestic market price."HongShiBin said.Because of this difference, the international route has been frustrated.Late last year, the U.S. department of commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation against Chinese production of large household washing machine as a result, Chinese production of washing machines are dumping behavior.The first anti-dumping investigation against samsung and LG eventually affected the entire Chinese washing machine industry.

Data show that the export volume of home appliance products fell for the first time since the financial crisis in 2015, and the export volume of 2016 has not seen any increase.In the case of foreign trade, there are three things that Chinese home appliance companies inevitably encounter: the risks of trade protectionism caused by the difficulties of bilateral negotiations.Exchange rate risks from the adjustment of the world economic and monetary policy;The risk of "stagflation" in commodities caused by the world economic volatility cycle.The personage inside course of study thinks, with the adjustment of economic structure, the Chinese electrical appliances industry will also be into the transitional period, in 3 to 5 years or longer period of transformation and upgrading, home appliance industry, especially the export scale or volatility will continue.

Source: Beijing business daily