Speaking of the three major domestic home appliance giants, Midea, , Haier , and Gree are the first reactions of many people. Especially Gree Electric Appliances, under the leadership of the influential "Ms. Dong" Dong Mingzhu , Gree Electric Appliances has embarked on a path full of attention.
However, during this year's "Double 11" shopping festival, Gree, which has never been willing to be low-key, was stolen by another company. The helmsman of this company is no one else, but the founder of Xiaomi Lei Jun , who has "deep resentment" with Dong Mingzhu.
"Old hatred" adds "new hatred", how to calculate the "Ms. Dong" account?
"top air conditioner"
November 12, Gree released the "11.11" battle report, labeling the number one sales of air conditioners on the entire network: During the "11.11", JD Air Conditioner Self-operated Store & POP Store and Tmall Air Conditioner Store both ranked first in the list, and its own e-commerce platform "Gree Dong Mingzhu Store" also achieved sales of 410 million yuan during the "11.11" period.
Gree 11.11 part of the battle report. Image source: Gree Electric Appliances official Weibo
For Dong Mingzhu, chairman and president of Gree Electric Appliances, who once said domineeringly, "I am the world's boss, what is the oldest person in the air conditioner?" in 2018, air conditioners have always been the trump card of Gree Electric Appliances.
Dong Mingzhu's confidence did not come out of thin air. Gree Electric Appliances' 2019 annual report shows that according to data released by HVAC Information, Gree Central Air Conditioner firmly ranks leading the industry with a market share of 14.7%, achieving the "eight consecutive championships" in the domestic market; according to data released by Nikkei Shimbun in 2019, Gree Electric Appliances ranked first in the household air conditioner field with a global market share of 20.6%.
maintains the position of the air conditioner boss in the largest consumption season of the year, which is a happy event for Gree. You should know that under the influence of the epidemic, the air conditioning industry has just experienced a "coldest year". According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, from January to July 2020, the retail volume of China's air conditioner market was 99.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 27.7%.
But joy didn't last long, and a bigger problem was placed in front of Gree Electric. What disrupted this time was Lei Jun, who had previously had a "billion-billion bet" with Dong Mingzhu.
"Billion" hatred, seven years is not too late
"This is the best result since Xiaomi participated in the Double Eleven!" In the "Double 11" letter released by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, the joyful atmosphere was beyond words.
From November 1 to 11, Xiaomi mobile ranked first in the cumulative sales of Tmall, JD.com, Suning.com Android mobile phones, and returned to the third largest mobile phone shipment in the world after six years. While the mobile phone business is impressive, during this "Double 11" period, Xiaomi's total cumulative sales of all new retail channels in China exceeded 14.3 billion yuan.
good results bring good rankings. According to data from Suning.com Wukong list, as of 21:00 on November 11, the cumulative list of overall home appliance brand sales (October 21-November 11), the top three brands are Midea, Haier and Xiaomi, while Gree Electric ranked fourth behind Xiaomi.
In JD.com's "11.11" global home appliance good products rankings, although Gree Electric surpassed Xiaomi at the last moment and maintained its first place in the top spot, compared with Midea and Haier, the "Tanhua" competition has always been quite fierce. Even during the day on the 11th, Xiaomi was still ahead of Gree Electric.
Image source: JD.com.
Speaking of the "fight" between Gree Electric Appliances and Xiaomi, we have to mention the "billion-billion bet" between Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun.
It was at the award ceremony at the end of 2013. Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun, who were both selected as economic figures of the year, fought against each other around the different development models of the Internet and new retail. Lei Jun proposed that if Xiaomi's turnover exceeds Gree within five years, Dong Mingzhu will lose 1 yuan to Lei Jun; Dong Mingzhu responded on the spot and said, "If you want to bet, bet 1 billion."
In the past five years, Gree Electric's revenue increased from 120 billion yuan to 198 billion yuan, an increase of 60%; Xiaomi increased from more than 20 billion yuan to 174.9 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 8 times. Although the "bet" ended with Xiaomi's defeat, it is quite dramatic that in the second year when the result was settled, Xiaomi's revenue exceeded Gree Electric.
In this way, the flip of the "billion bet" seems to be a metaphor for Gree to give way to the "Double 11" this time.
's opponent's warning
"A diversified and technological global industrial group, with three major brands, Gree, TOSOT, and Jinghong, and its industry covers four major fields, including HVAC, household appliances, high-end equipment, and communication equipment." Gree Electric once introduced itself in its annual report.
But in fact, Gree's goal of "diversification" does not seem to be going well.
According to the "2020 Third Quarter China Home Appliance Market Report" released by the China Electronic Information Industry Development Institute, from 2017 to 2019, the revenue share of Gree Electric air conditioning products was 83.22%, 78.58% and 69.99% respectively.
From the data, the air conditioning business occupies an absolute dominant position in Gree Electric's revenue. While keeping the air conditioner trump card, Gree seems to be trapped in this trump card.
Gree Electric Appliances' third quarter report showed that Gree Electric Appliances' third quarter revenue was 56.387 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 2.35%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 7.337 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.32%.
While Gree Electric Appliances still maintained its decline in the first half of the year, Midea and Haier have escaped from the impact of the epidemic. Not only did they turn positive in the third quarter's revenue and net profit, but they also achieved significant growth.
, one decrease and one increase, reflects the different development paths of the three leading white appliance companies. Some industry analysts believe that the main reason for Gree's lack of motivation to recover is that it is overly relied on a single air-conditioning product.
"Gree Electric has been focusing on the air conditioning market for a long time, and its other products have been involved, but its market share is average; Haier is making efforts in home appliances and at the same time has made high-end lines represented by Casarte; Midea is that all products related to home appliances must basically participate. In this regard, it is very similar to the big dark horse of this 'Double 11' - Xiaomi Group."
If Gree Electric's label is "air conditioners", then Xiaomi has always been considered a "mobile seller". However, compared with Gree Electric's difficulty maintaining its position as the leader in the industry, Xiaomi is gradually achieving multiple developments in its main business and other consumer products.
According to Xiaomi's first quarter financial report this year, part of Xiaomi's IoT (Internet of Things) and consumer products revenue was 13 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 30% of Xiaomi's revenue, becoming an important support for Xiaomi to get rid of "mobile dependence".
This also led Lei Jun to announce in an internal Xiaomi letter in August that in the next decade, Xiaomi's core strategy will be upgraded to "mobile × AIoT". Under this "multiplication effect", AIoT business should become a catalyst and combustion aid for mobile phone business, penetrate more scenarios, win more users, obtain traffic and data, and become the moat of Xiaomi's business model.
"Ms. Dong" who let go
0 The old rival Midea and her new enemy Xiaomi have achieved gratifying results on the road of comprehensive development, and the "Iron Lady" is inevitably moved.
On November 17, at a press conference attended by Dong Mingzhu, the "billion bet" was mentioned again. Ms. Dong, who refused to admit defeat, emphasized, "The period for our bet is 5 years, with 5 years as the boundary, or Gree won." At the same time, she also let go that Gree Electric will actively embrace the Internet and use the Internet technology to make manufacturing enterprises more powerful.
Some industry insiders pointed out that although offline channels were once one of the strongest driving forces for Gree Electric Appliances’ development in the past decade, most of their businesses rely on offline channels. Walking on one leg is obviously not conducive to coping with the impact of uncertainty, especially in recent years, online shopping habits have become increasingly deeply penetrated, and not paying attention to online channels has obviously had a great impact on their performance.
Gree Electric Appliances' third quarter report shows that since the epidemic, Gree Electric Appliances has been actively carrying out live streaming and selling goods. According to public data, as of October 18 this year, Dong Mingzhu has accumulated 11 live streaming and selling goods, with Gree Electric Appliances' live streaming sales of about 42.589 billion yuan, which is about 33.4% of Gree Electric's revenue of 127.468 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2020.
Dong Mingzhu's small step into the live broadcast room has become a big step for Gree Electric to take out of its comfort zone. But in order to alleviate the dilemma of single category, Gree Electric still has a long way to go.
column editor: Gu Wanquan Text editor: Song Hui Title picture source: Xinhua News Agency Photo editor: Zhu Qing
Source: Author: China News Network
