"Changhong, a domestic home appliance brand that carries the memory of a generation. Once a leader in the home appliance industry, its TVs became a household name.
However, time flies, and Changhong's development is not smooth. According to the data of the global home appliance data authority**Aowei Cloud Network,2021In the first half of the year,Among the top ten global TV shipments,Chinese brands include TCL、Hisense and Xiaomi,But there is no Changhong。
What is even more regrettable is that a few years ago, Changhong even had to ** its own headquarters building because of the broken capital chain. However, regardless of Changhong's current situation, it carries the memories and expectations of our generation. "
From the leader in the field of domestic household appliances to the distressed enterprise that was forced to sell the building at a low price due to financial problems, what led to such a drastic change in Changhong's status? Tracing the history of Changhong, this veteran brand was born in the 50s of the last century, after the victory of the Liberation War, the founding of New China, the people laughed constantly, but just experienced the cruelty and heavy damage of the war, the whole country is in ruins.
In order to revitalize the economy and revitalize social development, China is determined to build a new foundation from the ruins. In 1951, the Central Finance Commission formulated the "First Five-Year Plan of the People's Republic of China for the Development of the National Economy" (the "First Five-Year Plan"), the core of this plan is to establish a national industrialization system, with the goal of completing the construction of 156 key engineering projects with the support of the Soviet Union and laying the foundation for China's industrialization.
Among them, there is a state-owned factory called "Changhong Machinery Factory", which was the only mechanical fire control radar manufacturing base in China at that time, which was highly valued and was also the predecessor of Changhong Electric.
Through unremitting efforts, the First Five-Year Plan was fulfilled in 1957, which greatly raised the level of the national economy and promoted the country's industrialization process.
After the economic and social order was stabilized, the state began to actively promote economic development, so a series of policies conducive to industrial innovation were introduced. In this context, a group of veterans who had fought bloodily for the country and the people saw the opportunity to start a business, and they gathered together and decided to make their own contributions to the construction of the country's independent industry.
In 1958, Changhong Company came into being in Mianyang, Sichuan. Initially, Changhong's main products were still military supplies. However, with the improvement of people's living standards, the leadership of Changhong keenly discovered the people's demand for household appliances, so it decisively adjusted its strategic deployment, and Changhong gradually changed from a military enterprise to a production and processing enterprise that takes into account both military and civilian use.
In 1978, China sounded the clarion call for reform and opening up, and since then, people's entertainment has become colorful. Before the reform and opening up, the radio was the most popular entertainment tool, although it could not be heard, but with the announcer's vivid description, people could also imagine the outside world, but this entertainment method obviously had limitations.
And then came on"TV", bringing a new entertainment experience to people. In addition to sound, television also provides real-time news footage and elaborate film and television productions, and there is no doubt that people are more interested in television than they are on radio.
However, due to technical and ** problems, most of the TVs at that time were in black and white, and it was more difficult to buy.
At that time, although domestic companies were also selling TVs, they mainly relied on imports, resulting in TVs being expensive and unaffordable for ordinary families. Even if you can afford to buy it, you need to queue up at a department store to buy it through a TV purchase coupon, and this kind of purchase coupon is even more difficult to find, and often a small factory can only buy a TV together.
Although TV has not yet become a necessity,But Changhong is far-sighted,Foresee the future of domestic TV,Especially color TV,Will occupy the mainstream of the home appliance market。 So,Changhong invested a lot of resources in research and development TV,Vigorously promote its own products,And made a bold decision:Price reduction。
When other manufacturers were still maintaining the original price, Changhong took the lead in starting the first war, attracting a large number of consumers to buy at a price far lower than that of other brands. While other companies have followed suit, Changhong has seized the opportunity in the TV market.
Consumers found that,Although it is cheap,But Changhong's TV quality is very high,The picture is clear and durable。 At the same time,Changhong also solved the problem of inventory backlog by selling TVs,Accumulated a good reputation and profitability,Successfully completed the technical upgrade from black and white TV to color TV。
1990year,Changhong TV won the domestic color TV sales champion of that year with its excellent quality,It can be called"National brand"and become the pride of the Chinese people. However, in 1996, imported home appliance brands entered the Chinese market in a big way, which brought great pressure to domestic home appliance brands.
As a leader in the home appliance industry, Changhong did not hesitate to start the price reduction strategy again and launched a showdown with imported brands. In the case of consistent technology and quality,Changhong** is on average lower than imported TVs18,Other brands have also joined Changhong,Jointly launched a price reduction action,Finally, it successfully defended the market share of domestic brands,Successfully survived the crisis。
Changhong's continuous price reduction actions have caused disgust from other brands. They believe that Changhong has reduced prices without industry regulations, which is undoubtedly an act that disrupts the market order, and its essence is to try to achieve market monopoly.
Therefore, after two ** wars, Changhong began to be attacked by negative **. At the same time,With the development of the economy,People gradually have the ability to buy color TVs,It is no longer possible to meet market demand by relying only on price reduction。
In order to monopolize the TV market as before,Changhong began to improve the research and development strength of color TV technology,By signing agreements with eight domestic color picture tube processing factories,Require them to only be Changhong's exclusive **color tube。
The market share of Changhong color tube is as high as 70%, and other home appliance companies are under pressure. In order to break Changhong's monopoly, a number of companies jointly complained about disrupting the market order and implementing monopoly.
As a result, the market department finally opened up the import channels of foreign color tubes, resulting in Changhong being unable to continue to monopolize. However, a large amount of inventory backlog has made Changhong's sales in the domestic market difficult.
In this case, Changhong decided to expand its business to overseas markets in search of higher profits.
Changhong is a leading enterprise with many years of reputation and reputation, and has landed on the Shanghai ** Stock Exchange in 1994. Through years of hard work, Changhong has grown from a small company to an enterprise group.
Therefore, Changhong believes that it has enough strength to reach cooperation with foreign countries. On a global scale, the United States is undoubtedly an ideal partner for maximum profits.
Once the cooperation with the United States is reached, Changhong will obtain a large number of first-class orders to further enhance the company's profitability and popularity. Such an opportunity, Changhong will naturally not miss it.
Therefore, Changhong decided to take the step of transnational cooperation. In 2001, Changhong began to prepare a multinational strategic plan, taking the United States as the main sales target.
After comparative investigation and preliminary research, Changhong finally chose the American apex company as the partner object.
apex digital, also known as apex company, was founded in ontario, california, usa in 1997.a large household appliance company, it takes small profits and quick turnovers as its main marketing strategy initially, *was its main sales product, and within less than five years of its establishment, it surpassed traditional household appliance leader sony group to become the first supplier of **s in the united states and established a sales channel with large chain supermarkets. during walmart's promotional days, it could earn 70 million us dollars by selling **s alone; later, apex also saw the profits in the color tv market and decided to enter it. perhaps due to apex's marketing capabilities and credit level seen in background investigations, or perhaps to solve the problem of accumulated inventory, changhong chose the settlement method of "on credit" when signing the agreement with apex company.
Credit sales are a type of sales based on buyer credit, where the seller will allow the buyer to pick up the goods and then pay for them within the agreed time after signing an agreement. Apex company with strong strength in the United States home appliance market quickly opened up the situation,With Changhong TV as the main product,In less than a year, it became the fifth largest color TV market in the United States。
However, Changhong did not achieve the expected profits, and the true face of Apex began to appear. It turned out that Apex began to default on debts for various reasons after the initial payment on time, and there were loopholes in Changhong's financial management and risk control, which led to the inability to force Apex to settle the arrears, although Apex took advantage of the loopholes in the overseas ** policy.