Home appliance industry in the countryside facing the reshuffle

On November 30, the implementation of the home-to-country policy for four years will end in ten provinces and cities in Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Dalian, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Chongqing, and Shaanxi. This is the second batch of exiting provinces. Urban area. By the end of January 2013, this policy will be completely ended in the country.

Although home appliances to the countryside has played a significant role in stimulating rural household appliance consumption and improving township sales channels, the industry expects that home appliances to the countryside will not have a hibernation effect. With the exit of the policy, the growth rate of rural home appliance market will slow down next year. A group of SMEs that have taken advantage of the policy of home appliances going to the countryside may face difficulties after the end of the policy.

Manufacturers switch in advance, little impact

"Home appliances going to the countryside will not be like the trade-in, as before the end of the policy, there will be concentrated purchases." An appliance analyst told the "First Financial Daily", because according to the policy of home appliances to the countryside, a rural resident buys a set within 4 years. TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and other products can receive subsidies. "The purchase has already been bought, and the marginal effect of policy stimulus has diminished."

Moreover, relevant statistics show that the number of color TVs owned by rural households per 100 households in China exceeds 100, and the number of refrigerators and washing machines per 100 rural households also exceeds 60 units. Home appliances to the countryside has played its role.

At the end of last year, Sichuan, Henan, and Shandong took the lead in ending their home appliances to rural areas as scheduled. The three provinces accounted for about one-third of the country's rural household appliance market. Another one-third of the market will withdraw this year and it will be fully completed next year. Gradually exiting also gives companies time to prepare.

From June 1 this year, the state implemented a new round of subsidy policies for energy-saving household appliances. Xie Shaoliang, general manager of Hunan Zhengdong Home Appliances Co., Ltd., told this newspaper that many manufacturers switched their home appliances products to energy-saving Huimin products in advance to clean up inventory of household appliances to the countryside, especially energy-efficient products.

Skyworth and Konka stopped the production of home appliances to the countryside in the second half of this year and concentrated resources on the TV models of energy-saving Huimin. Liu Yaoping, general manager of marketing for Skyworth China, believes that after 4 years of implementation, home appliances to the countryside will not have a tail-tail effect. According to Lin Hongyi, general manager of Konka Multimedia Business Division, in the second half of the year, Konka has turned its energy to energy-saving policies. The energy-saving color TV has been rolled out in rural areas, so the exit policy of home appliances to the countryside has little effect.

Gan Yonghe, vice president of Hisense Kelon, told reporters that they had begun clearing inventory of home appliances to the countryside two months ago. “There is not much impact.” said Li Tao, head of the Brand Department of Wanjiale Gas Appliance Co., Ltd., “Home Appliances Going to the Countryside” is essentially a national promotional act that stimulates rural consumer demand and promotes the construction of rural sales outlets and service outlets. “Its mission Has been completed."

Stimulation reduced, rural market growth slowed

According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, from January to October this year, the country (excluding Shandong, Henan, and Sichuan) sold 65.22 million home appliances to rural areas, and achieved sales of 175.24 billion yuan, up by 23.5% and 18.8% year-on-year, respectively, on a comparable basis. . As of the end of October 2012, the country has sold 283 million home appliances to rural areas and achieved sales of 681.1 billion yuan.

In the year of 100 billion yuan in sales, although there are transitional periods and other follow-up subsidy policies, the short-term impact of the exit of home appliances to the countryside is still expected to exist.

Wu Shiqing, vice president of Omagh Refrigeration, revealed that the rural distributors recently did not dare to stock their products and reduced the number of home appliances to the countryside. Therefore, the demand for goods from the factory was also reduced. The policy of energy-saving and benefit-minded people in rural areas has no household appliances to the countryside, and hopes that the convergence of the two policies can be done better.

Li Tao also believes that the policy of saving energy and benefiting the people is to encourage the purchase of energy-efficient home appliances, and the general price of high-energy-efficient home appliances will be more expensive. In the first and second-tier markets, they will sell better. Therefore, after the home appliances go to the countryside, the manufacturers still need to develop for rural development. Sex products. "The short-term promotion through sales can make up for the vacancies brought about by the suspension of home appliances to the countryside. The long-term rural market will develop steadily," said Li Tao.

Peng Yi, research director of Zhongkang Market, predicts that with the exit of home appliances to rural areas, the increase in rural home appliance market will slow down significantly next year, and the growth rate will change from a ten-digit figure to a single digit this year. “First, policies have overdrawn some rural household appliances in advance. Second, the economic environment is not good. The growth of farmers' income is weak. Third, the stimulus policies are reduced.”

Peng Yu believes that in the past few years, the three or four-tier market is the “horse cart” that will drive the demand for Chinese home appliances. However, the pull of this carriage will be weakened next year. The demand for the upgrading of primary and secondary markets is obvious, and the market-dominated market will shift to the primary and secondary markets.

Small businesses, small channels face elimination

In the list of successful home appliances to the countryside, there are about 100 refrigerators and washing machines. If you follow the normal market competition, the industry will not have such a brand. Therefore, many large companies believe that home appliances to the countryside hinder the improvement of industry concentration. Therefore, in September this year, when the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology consulted whether the policy of home appliances going to the countryside continued, it was opposed by most large companies.

Xie Shaoliang believes that after the exit of home appliances to the countryside policy, small brands will be very difficult and the industry concentration will increase. Appliances went to the countryside to help the small brands, but the energy-saving and people-friendly policies raised the threshold of the industry, not every small company can produce energy-saving products.

Rural home appliances channels will also face reshuffle. Peng Yu predicts that there will be a wave of consolidation in the 3rd and 4th markets next year. There will be no endorsement for home appliances sales points to the countryside. Some poorly-competent rural channels will naturally disappear or be acquired.

In fact, some businesses already have plans. The “Huitongda”, which is led by Wu Xingdian’s owner Wang Jianguo, is integrating rural channels in Jiangsu province and plans to control 2000 sales outlets in counties and townships through equity participation.

Haier’s Sunshun Electric is also eyeing it. It is building home appliance sales and logistics networks in China’s third- and fourth-tier markets. A person close to Sunshun told this newspaper that the market potential of the tertiary market is still huge. After all, rural households have less household appliances than the primary or secondary market. In the long run, farmers' income and demand will increase, and rural channels will receive electricity. Less business impact.

However, Xie Shaoliang said that farmers in the “after 80′s” will now have online price comparisons. Although e-commerce accounts for a relatively small proportion in the rural household appliance market, it has already hit the price system. Therefore, the specialty stores in the tertiary and tertiary markets are facing challenges in the “post-entry era” and must find value-added methods.