Industry expects home appliance industry to slow down air-condition or negative growth next year

As the film "2012" warned, this year's home appliance business is a bit catastrophic.

It is widely expected in the industry that the growth rate of the home appliance industry will slow down in 2012, and the air-conditioning industry may even experience negative growth. The basis for the judgment is threefold:

First, in 2009, 2010, and 2011, the white goods industry has achieved double-digit growth for three consecutive years, and the tide has also declined. In 2012, the industry entered an adjustment period that is inevitable;

The second is the withdrawal of policies. On June 1 this year, the implementation of the air-conditioning energy-saving policy for two years was withdrawn from the stage of history; at the end of November, Henan, Shandong, and Sichuan expired their home appliances to the countryside. By the end of next year and early next year, the remaining provinces in China will also be terminated. Home appliances to the countryside policy; December 31, home appliances trade-in policy will also be implemented nationwide. Withdrawal of the stimulus policy will enable home appliance sales to enter the platform phase from the growth phase.

Third, the global economic environment has deteriorated, the debt crisis in Europe has increased, the US market has weakened, and domestic inflation has weakened the spending power of residents.

In the past few years, home appliance companies, especially air-conditioning companies, are accustomed to making higher growth targets each year, and then expanding the scale of production and selling goods to dealers. But the market cannot grow without limit, and there will always be a bottleneck. As a result, the contradictions accumulated for many years finally broke out at the end of 2011. High inventory levels and tight funding have become the portrayal of the air conditioning industry in the winter.

Layoffs, salary cuts, and cuts have formed a wave in the air-conditioning industry. In November, layoffs broke out. There are companies in a regional marketing center, the proportion of layoffs as high as 50%; a Zhejiang brand marketing division in the region also cut off 3 to 5 people. In addition, the salary paid by a certain Guangdong air-conditioning company to various marketing personnel in November hit a 20 percent discount on the basis of October.

At the same time, a large number of investment projects have been halted, and most of the air-conditioning companies' overall investment budgets for the coming year have declined. A typical example is that, despite the fact that the bid for the home appliance industry in the CCTV bidding meeting that was just concluded recently did not show any decline, the bidding volume of Gree, Haier, and other companies was all less than last year, and many companies abandoned their advertisements on CCTV. Input.

Recently, an air conditioner and refrigerator fittings company in Foshan has been besieged by workers because of the sharp reduction in orders.

“Industrial chain crisis”, a Foshan agent described the industry status under the “threefold attack” of export contraction, real estate downturn and policy end. He predicted that the 2012 challenge will be more severe than in 2008, and this “winter” It may be as long as two or three years.

When the market has slow growth, no growth or even negative growth, what should we do?

First of all, we still have "sunshine" in our hearts. Although not growing for the time being, the Chinese market is large enough, with domestic sales of air-conditioners reaching more than 40 million units a year; the protection of housing will also provide new increments; and the rural household appliance market has great potential. For example, the number of air conditioners per 100 rural households is only About 20-30 units, while Japan has reached more than 200 units; some small companies that fell in the winter will also make room for some.

Zhang Yanbin, assistant manager of Ovid Consulting, called for the industry to return to rationality. In the winter, cash is king, and cash flow management is needed. At the same time, change the inertial thinking of expanding the scale in the past. When expanding production, you need to see both the “peak” and the “bottom” and put more energy into it. To technological innovation; but also to focus on the development of three, four, five markets.

Cai Ying, Assistant Director of the Information Resource Development Department of the National Information Center, believes that at present, large companies have encountered two major problems in the development of the tertiary and tertiary markets. First, the products are not well-targeted, and generally take the middle and low-end products in cities. In rural areas, in fact, even if it is a consumer in the fourth-tier market, the purchasing power is not weak. Second, some small-scale enterprises that have developed their home appliances to the countryside have relied on local markets and still have the ability to survive. Now that the big chains are in Grades 4 and 5 Market development is not yet mature, and large enterprises must be meticulous in their efforts to make the fourth and fifth-tier markets.

Since the market is relatively saturated, if the company still has to grow, it will have to be "aggressive." Therefore, an air-conditioning industry veteran predicts that there may be a hard battle in the industry after the 2012 Spring Festival. This view was quickly refuted by another person in the industry: Everyone is a listed company, all require profits, the industry has entered a rational competition.