Recently, the topic of Gree Group's change of leadership has rushed to the top of the hot search, and many people are puzzled that Dong Mingzhu has gone to **, which is really unbearable. In fact, most of the Gree we talk about in daily life refers to Gree Electric Appliances, and Gree Group is only the fourth largest shareholder of Gree Electric Appliances.
Looking back at 2023, it is also a year full of topics for Gree Electric. Dong Mingzhu's rose air conditioner designed by himself, Meng Yutong's workplace drama, Greti, who was disgusted all his life, and ...... lawsuit with OaksThe twists and turns finally made the white power giant grow another year.
In January, Gree announced the overall situation of the company's performance in 2023: annual revenue of about 205 billion yuan, profit of about 29 billion yuan, and tax contribution of 17.6 billion yuan. Today, Gree Electric has been established for more than 30 years, and when it comes to achieving revenue, Dong Mingzhu's biggest headache is still the main business.
Unlike other home appliance giants, Gree's revenue has been limited to air conditioners for many years, Dong Mingzhu has not thought about changing, but he has been unable to do so. More importantly, the air conditioning market is also in danger of falling out, and previously, Midea and Gree both described the air conditioning business as the first in the industry in their own financial reports.
According to Gree's official data, the brand market share is as high as 339%, ranking first in terms of share. Midea cited the data of Aowei cloud network, and the offline share of household appliances was 337%, ranking first in market share; **The domestic market share of air conditioners continues to maintain the first place.
Whoever is number one, for Gree, the crisis is imminent.
Continue to "bet" on air conditioning?
It is undeniable that Dong Mingzhu's preference for Gree Titanium was once so deep that it made the entire capital world incredible, and the data showed that Gree Electric was 18An investment loss of $3.8 billion was $175.5 billion yuan, but Dong Mingzhu still seems unwilling to let go. At the end of last year, Gree continued to be optimistic about the "bottomless pit" of Gree Titanium, resulting in Gree's own stock price sharply.
In fact, Dong Mingzhu keeps laying out a new energy company that the outside world is not optimistic about, in the final analysis, it is for air conditioning.
In the past two years, the air conditioning market has been seriously homogeneous, and fresh air conditioning, non-wind sensing technology, air washing technology, sleep air conditioning, and sterilization health technology have ......So far, there are basically no new topics left to fry. In the first half of 2023, the retail sales of the air conditioning market will be 129 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 185%；The retail sales volume was 36.9 million units, a year-on-year increase of 176%, ushered in a long-awaited double increase in production and sales.
However, in the first half of 2023, the growth rate of Gree's air conditioning business will only be 18%。In 2022, Gree Electric's air conditioning revenue will be 13485.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 239%, of course, Gree's troubles come from the entire air conditioning industry, and the core of competition in the second half of this field still revolves around technology
Since the second half of 2022, major air-conditioning companies have built R&D bases, and TCL Air Conditioner Wuhan Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park has been fully put into operation, with an annual production capacity of 6 million sets; Philips air conditioning production and research base settled in Chuzhou, Anhui Province and was officially put into production. The total investment of its project is 10 billion yuan; Daikin (China) Investment*** Investment 17500 million yuan, investment in the construction of Daikin air conditioning South China base project in Huizhou, etc.
On the Gree side, "* Star" data shows that since the beginning of this year, Gree Electric has obtained 213 new patent authorizations, a decrease of 37 over the same period last year54%。In the first three quarters of 2023, Gree's R&D cost is 52200 million yuan, which is also the least among the three giants of Midea and Haier.
Dong Mingzhu wants to use the new energy route to break through the technical bottleneck of the air conditioning industry to maintain Gree's market position, such as photovoltaic air conditioning, which is one of the important reasons why her real gold ** smashed Gree Titanium, in other words, Gree, which has been committed to diversification, wants to keep the air conditioner the most.
For example, in 2018, Gree released the "Air Conditioning Optical Storage DC Technology", and in 2021, Gree officially launched the ...... of the optical storage and direct flexible air conditioning systemBut none of these can alleviate Dong Mingzhu's anxiety.
Because on this road, not only Gree, but also "friends" such as Haier and Midea are with us.
Taking Haier as an example, in December 2015, Haier released a complete set of photovoltaic home energy systems, officially entering the distributed photovoltaic market; In 2017, Haier Solar Energy Company was formally established; In 2018, Haier Sungrow reached a cooperation to provide more intelligent services in the field of home photovoltaics. Midea is not to be outdone, and public information shows that Midea's first home photovoltaic energy storage technology has been rated as "internationally leading".
Gree relied on a way to break the situation obviously squeezed others, not to mention, in the past two years, Midea, Haier's air conditioning business is not inferior to Gree, and even stronger than Gree in terms of growth rate, data show that these two in the first half of last year by launching the first battle, expanding sinking channels, so that the growth rate of air conditioning business reached 105% and 183%。
Gree tightly protects a "bad chess" that is only difficult to make a profit, which is also a helpless move, after all, if you don't work hard, I'm afraid you will be squeezed down.
Change, is it really hard?
I don't know when it began, "change" has become a major driving force for Gree's survival, whether it is product matrix, sales channels, or cross-border operation, Gree is trying its best to set off a new change. In terms of products, Dong Mingzhu has always had a dream of "all categories of household appliances", in addition to air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, water heaters, water dispensers ......It's best to display them all.
The cross-border is even more unexpected, so far, Gree has planned to enter the track of automobiles, energy storage, mobile phones, prefabricated dishes and so on. Obviously, these plans did not succeed much, and in the end it was only air conditioning that depended on it. According to the data, in 2022, the revenue of Gree's air conditioning business will be 13485.9 billion yuan, accounting for 71 percent of total revenue36%, compared to 70 in 2021Compared with 11%, the proportion of air conditioning business not only did not decrease, but increased by 125%。
By 2023, Gree's other main businesses such as household appliances and industrial products will account for only 11 percent of total revenue8%。This is somewhat restrictive for a large home appliance company. In particular, Haier and Midea faced by Gree have basically achieved large revenues in all categories in recent years.
Taking Midea as an example, Aowei cloud network data shows that Midea's products rank first in the industry in 6 categories, including household air conditioners, desktop pan microwaves, desktop ovens, electric heaters, induction cookers, and electric kettles. Gree even put the plan to expand the product camp on small household appliances.
It's a pity that the bubble of exquisite life will burst as soon as it is poked, and the retail sales of small kitchen appliances in 2022 will be 520300 million yuan, down 6 percent year-on-year7%；The retail sales volume was 220.49 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 127%, which is also the second consecutive year of decline in the small household appliances category. Change, sometimes is thankless.
As for its own air-conditioning business, Gree has mainly changed its channels. According to the data of Aowei cloud network, in 2023, the average price of air conditioners of the Gree brand is the highest, reaching 4641 yuan, higher than that of Midea (4355 yuan) and Haier (4257 yuan).
In terms of channels, Dong Mingzhu has been trying to attract online business in the past few years.
In 2020, Dong Mingzhu started live streaming on Douyin, and carried out more than 10 live broadcasts that year, with a total of nearly 50 billion yuan. Meng Yutong and Wang Ziru who appeared later were also in order to seize the online market.
Frankly speaking, Gree's starting point is correct.
In 2022, the retail sales of China's home wire market will reach 486.1 billion yuan, and the proportion of home grid purchases will increase to 582%, much higher than the overall online shopping penetration rate in China. According to QuestMobile's "2023 Consumer Goods Private Domain Customer Acquisition Research Report", the consumption power of private domain traffic users in the household appliances category is higher than that of public domain traffic users, and the proportion of private domain users in household appliances has reached 39 in the proportion of users who consume more than 2,000 yuan online5%。
Dong Mingzhu's efforts are also obvious to all, Zhongyikang data, from 2019 to 2022, Gree's online retail sales accounted for 223% to 289%, Midea's online share increased from 30 to 30 in the same period5% slipped to 282%, which also means that Gree's sales share in e-commerce channels has surpassed that of Midea.
Of course, Midea is fighting back, at present, Midea is constantly extending the online channel network, only on Kuaishou, Midea Group has more than 70 official accounts, last year's Double Eleven, Midea Department in Kuaishou as a whole increased by 76% year-on-year, the parent brand Midea increased by 177% year-on-year, and its brand Hualing increased by 2097% year-on-year.
Compared with these full-range home appliance giants of the United States, Gree not only has a product matrix, but even the sub-brand camp is not as strong as them. When the consumption of household appliances is at all costs, the **online and offline surges** are eye-catching, and the "thin" Gree is inevitably a little inadequate.
2024: Where is Gree going?
Dong Mingzhu, who has always been at the helm with iron blood, seems to be beginning to be confused.
In 2024, where should Gree go? In terms of market positioning, whether to continue to go deep into the sinking areas and make it more and more difficult to do the air-conditioning business outside the Fifth Ring Road, or to sneak up and compete for the high-end market share taken away by Midea and Haier. Is it the best energy, concentrate on betting on air conditioning, or continue to operate ...... whole category
In the new year, these problems are more complex and heavy on Gree's heart.
It is true that the sinking of household appliances is an established trend in the industry, after all, it involves the channel strategy of survival behind home appliance enterprises, and Gree is no exception. According to Morgan Stanley, lower-tier cities such as third- and fourth-tier cities account for 59% of China's nominal GDP. It is estimated that by 2030, the size of China's sinking consumer market will reach 97 trillion dollars.
Specific to the home appliance market, the data of the "2022 China Home Appliance Market Report" shows that in 2022, the sinking home appliance market will increase slightly against the trend, with retail sales reaching 285 billion yuan, an increase of 2 over the previous year7%, and the proportion of retail sales of home appliances in the overall home appliance market increased from 315% to 341%。Among them, air conditioning is a key development object in the process of sinking household appliances, and the offline monitoring data of Aowei cloud network shows that in the first half of 2023, the retail sales of air conditioners in the domestic county-level market increased by 17 percent year-on-year63%, and the growth rate of the first and second tier markets was only. 27%。
Among all the sinking traditional household appliances, air conditioning has also become the easiest category to reach towns and villages, the data shows that in the composition statistics of household appliances in the sinking market from 1 to 48 weeks, air conditioning accounted for 329%, followed by refrigerators 191%, washing machine 161%, color TV 147% and so on.
There is no doubt that the purchase of household appliances in the sinking market is mainly based on offline channels, although Gree has spared no effort to operate online in the past two years, but overall, offline revenue is still the majority. However, it is the channel network that has been proud for many years that has indirectly become a major burden for Gree, and the contradictions between the two parties are increasing day by day
First of all, Dong Mingzhu made a high-profile live broadcast, bypassing the provincial sales division in the middle, and the terminal dealers directly sold goods to consumers, resulting in the price increase rate of the provincial sales division nearly halved, and the first-class merchants also dropped from 5%-8% to the lowest only about 3%. Then, Gree announced that the sales company lost its pricing power, and was only responsible for providing installation and after-sales services, and changed from earning the difference to charging service fees, and the markup rate was further compressed to 2%-4%.
In mid-2022, Gree asked all provinces to strictly inspect dealers and prohibit them from simultaneously ** Philips air conditioners; In August, Gree abruptly stopped shipping to Hebei. Gree continues to put pressure down, in the final analysis, it is the huge first-class distribution system that makes the brand lose the first-class advantage in the sinking market.
Although Gree is pressing step by step and making drastic moves, as of 2022, Gree still has 26 channel-based sales companies across the country, covering a maximum of 40,000 outlets, and unexpectedly "forced" several major dealers such as Shandong and Hebei. But if you want to seize the sinking area, the relationship with the dealer should not be too stiff.
In 2024, Gree began to plan to fully implement the supply of online batch platforms to alleviate the pressure on both enterprises and distributors. It also worked with JD.com to develop sinking channels and develop nearly 600 Gree + JD joint stores. Gree cares so much about the outside of the Fifth Ring Road, the reason is also very simple, in the 2023 national offline market air conditioning best-selling model list, Midea and Gree both account for 3 high-end models of more than 7,000 yuan.
However, Midea's total market share of sales is 342%, Gree only 241%。To this day, Dong Mingzhu still maintains a consistent high profile in front of the camera, and behind this, it seems that Gree's embarrassment and confusion are also hidden.
The Tao is always reasonable, and he used to use the name Crooked Dao, a new ** in the Internet and technology circle. This article is an original article, and it is forbidden to retain any form of author-related information**.
Kunpeng Project