Looking forward to 2022: Normalization of epidemic prevention and control, we can look forward to these three areas

Image source @ Visual China

Text | HangtongShare, author | Book Voyage

As 2021 draws to a close, the COVID-19 pandemic that people are actively looking forward to disappearing and returning to normal life has not actually happened. Instead, two mutants, Delta and Amikeron, have struck out.

Due to the high pathogenicity of Omikron, delta was replaced in just one or two weeks and became the main epidemic strain in Europe and the United States. At present, the number of confirmed cases in the world has continued to be more than 800,000 for several consecutive days. At the same time, sporadic outbreaks occurred in Zhejiang, Shaanxi and other places at the end of the year, which was relatively serious than the sporadic epidemic earlier this year.

This shows that whether it is external defense input or internal defense rebound, it is now facing a bigger test than ever, not a smaller test. In other words, it may be even more unrealistic to hope that the epidemic will disappear next year or in the next few years. People must be prepared for the normalization and long-term prevention and control of the epidemic.

Under the premise of normalization and long-term epidemic prevention and control, there are indeed many industries that have gradually shrunk in scale and even suffered devastating blows, the first of which is tourism and transportation; offline stores are also divided into two types, one is near the community, the other is near the business district, the tourist area, and the latter has been greatly affected. Next, because of the obstruction of the global supply chain, China's entire industrial chain of manufacturing also needs to transfer a part of the export capacity to domestic sales, which is not easy.

Specific to the technology and Internet industry that the president is familiar with, except for the sudden suspension of online education due to policy regulation, the rest of the subdivisions have been affected, which is the natural result of the spillover of the epidemic effect. For example, many snack and beverage brands of the so-called "new retail" were originally planning to smash the original wave of financing through offline distribution, and transform the popularity of live broadcasting, social grass planting and other ways into "impulse consumption" in tourist attractions and other places. As a result, the epidemic disrupted the rhythm of going offline, and also made it difficult for its follow-up financing to continue.

If we look at this line of thinking – and see which industries are more in line with the trend of people spending more time at home and around their communities under the epidemic prevention and control situation – then the following three areas are expected to continue to grow in 2022.

01 Community outlets in offline stores

As mentioned above, offline stores fall into two categories. In normal times, the city's business districts, shopping blocks and other places form a tidal flow of people with residential areas. Because of the epidemic, people stay at home more often, and the shops around business districts and tourist attractions have shrunk greatly; in contrast, community supermarkets, vegetable markets, convenience stores, etc. have received higher attention than ever before.

The once-optimistic online grocery shopping and delivery to home model was questioned earlier this year about killing offline "husband and wife stores" through low-price dumping, triggering regulatory intervention. On the one hand, this kind of promotion model established by burning money is not sustainable, and the follow-up must almost be returned through price increases; on the other hand, it is because offline physical stores are also used as front warehouses, which is a bridgehead for community supplies in case of a spread epidemic, and it is intolerable for such stores to be driven away.

It turns out that when prices are not attractive, the slight convenience of buying groceries online is not enough to completely move people out of the community stores, which have more people than they visited before the epidemic, and show greater development potential.

In his previous visit to Shanxi convenience stores, the president pointed out that judging by the situation in Shanxi, the construction of 24-hour convenience stores covering various communities nationwide is more feasible and profitable than ever. Although other areas do not fully replicate the experience of Shanxi convenience stores, there are also new gadgets such as unmanned retail vegetable cabinets.

Under the premise of dynamic zeroing, people's more frequent patronage of the bottom quotient of their own community will also become a high-probability event in 2022.

02 Hardware and software required for remote work and learning

Compared with other countries, Chinese employers are relatively conservative: as long as their cities are low-risk, they will immediately resume requiring all employees to return to work. Still, the pandemic has made remote work and learning a must for "you can't use it, but you can't do without it." Tools for remote work and learning continue to be popular.

On the software side, SaaS products that help work more smoothly, as well as simpler online documentation, scheduling tools, and gadgets that focus on personal scheduling and efficiency gains, all have room for growth. If you can make your own products into a lightweight, highly scalable multi-purpose tool through better product power, it will be more sought after. Microsoft's Office and Byte's Feishu are all vying to be the next Notion.

After the "double reduction" policy, the non-commercial online course services operated by the school, as well as the public welfare MOOCs, online museums and other services, will give birth to related technical support platforms, as well as the development of vr/AR, streaming media and other underlying technologies. Companies that provide basic technology will be more popular than companies at the application layer, referring to the brief popular Clubhouse this year, due to the emergence of a large number of "clones", the voice network behind it has become a big winner.

In terms of hardware, mobile phones, desktops, notebooks, tablets and other hardware required for working from home continue to have significant demand. According to media reports, the sales of low-end smartphones in Hong Kong have surged this year, because the elderly and site workers who did not use smartphones earlier needed mobile phones to install the place code application "safe travel".

In 2022, tablets and PCs will continue the development momentum of this year, and there will be two major trends in mobile phones that deserve attention at the same time: one is the so-called small size flagship, and the other is the folding screen, both of which may drive the popularity of various grade models and the trend of price reduction.

03 Tools and consumables for home life

Not willing to cook at home alone? That may require convenience food. This year, snail powder and hot dry noodles continue to be popular items. In addition, more people are aware of the existence of cooking bags - the sudden start of the restaurant on the street, or the eel in the Japanese food restaurant, which is often super low discount, there is a high probability that the food bag is heated.

But between the food bag and your own kitchen, there is always a layer of food safety concerns. In 2022, it will be very likely to bring some stable quality, reasonably priced pre-made dish packages, as well as semi-finished dishes that can be cooked as long as they are cooked, and there will be more different kinds of convenience foods that will continue to enrich people's single and home-based lives.

In addition, there are some household appliances that can greatly improve the quality of life at home for a long time. For example, more efficient sweeping robots, or handheld "floor washers"; blenders that can make more complex cooking; ovens that can make pastries, air fryers, and so on. Although the fascia gun myth has a tendency to be broken, equipment suitable for fitness may also be innovative.

Originally, some people saw home as just a place to sleep outside the company and on the road. Because people stay at home for a relatively longer time, it is more important to maintain this small environment and make their body and mind more comfortable, whether it is their own house or rent a house.

We still need to be optimistic that the epidemic will eventually pass. But the pandemic has been going on for two years and is changing the world more profoundly than previously expected. Today's economic growth lacks direction, people can't continue to run blindfolded, shrinking industries more than expanding. At this time, people's bodies and spirits are all at home, although it is a last resort, but it is also very rare. So, it's time to let our eyes go off the sea of stars. To rethink whether the here and now has a new meaning that is more worth excavating.