Known as the "star category", why did its growth suddenly decline?

The sudden epidemic in 2020 once allowed more home-based people to enter the kitchen, and the micro-steaming of baking kitchen appliances with kitchen cooking interests has achieved rapid growth in scale. The time has passed for two years, and the situation of repeated sudden increases in the epidemic in 2022 is more severe than that of 2021, which is second only to the first round of epidemics in early 2020 in terms of the current impact on social economy. However, the social phenomenon of "after the outbreak of the epidemic, when the cooking art broke out" has not reappeared synchronously, and the sales scale corresponding to the micro-steamed baking category has not increased but decreased. According to the data of Aowei Cloud Network, the retail volume and volume of the desktop and embedded micro-steaming markets in the first quarter were in a state of year-on-year decline (the volume fell by 25.5% and 5.1% respectively year-on-year; The amount fell by 16.3% and 1.8% year-on-year, respectively. What went wrong?

Growth has been hampered by the pandemic

"The main reason is that the impact of logistics outages on the eve of the Spring Festival in January led to an overall decline in the market, and at the same time, the outbreak of the epidemic in many places in February and March, market growth was blocked", Wang Weiqiang, deputy general manager of Fanbury Consulting, pointed out to the State Grid reporter that according to the total data he provided by Panbray Consulting, the retail sales of the micro-steamed grilling market (desktop + embedded overall) in the first quarter of 2022 increased by 7.0% year-on-year, but from the trend point of view, there was indeed a slowdown in growth.

In fact, not only the micro-steamed baking category, we can look at the entire home appliance market to analyze: home appliances from production to sales to assembly, each link depends on the support of logistics. However, since the beginning of this year, many places in the mainland have faced repeated disruptions of the epidemic, and under the influence of epidemic prevention and control policies, related home appliance companies have not only broken the supply chain of front-end raw materials/parts, but also seriously hindered the trunk line transportation from factory to warehouse, coupled with the stagnation of e-commerce distribution logistics and the installation of distribution and installation of one kilometer at the end, all of which are placed in the context of the high price of bulk raw materials, and the production and demand of the home appliance market are suppressed to a certain extent. Reflected in the consumer market, it can also be seen from the data of Aowei Cloud Network that the overall retail volume of China's home appliance market in the first quarter of this year was 122.74 million units, down 17.2% year-on-year; Retail sales of 143 billion yuan, down 11.1% year-on-year, of which online markets also rare retail sales fell by 7.5%. In the overall downturn of the industry, the micro-steamed baking category will inevitably be affected to a certain extent. Of course, under the residential economy in 2020, the over-consumption of a variety of small kitchen appliances, including micro-steaming and baking, is also one of the factors.

Tang Lijuan, director of the boss's electrical steaming box business, analyzed to reporters that the main reason for the decline of the (micro-steaming) industry is still affected by the epidemic. The perception of raw material price increase pressure at the level of related enterprises is also relatively obvious. "Not only the steaming oven, the whole kitchen appliance, because it is the same accessories, including chips, stainless steel materials, etc. are all rising, so the perception is still very obvious."

"As far as the data we currently have, the overall market for micro-steamed baking products has maintained a stable and healthy development," Li Jingtao, marketing director of the kitchen appliances division of Boxi Household Appliances (China) Co., Ltd., told reporters. However, he also pointed out that at the channel level, traditional offline channels are facing sales challenges and have declined to a certain extent. Some consumers' purchasing habits have migrated from offline channels to online.

Discover new opportunities in the face of disadvantages

In the face of the changing market reality, some industry analysts believe that the relevant micro-steaming and grilling enterprises urgently need to improve their ability to adjust their development strategies in real time and find new opportunities in adverse situations.

So, how do you identify new opportunities in an unfavorable market environment? And how to achieve deterministic growth in the midst of uncertainty? A number of relevant responsible persons of kitchen appliance companies mentioned a number of different considerations when answering this question to reporters, but there is one commonality, which is also an essential element for rapidly gaining competitive advantage in the post-epidemic era, that is, "adhering to product research and development and technological innovation". Taking BSH as an example, Li Jingtao told reporters that for future challenges and market changes, BSH has always insisted on responding to changes with no change. "What remains unchanged is our product development and technological innovation, at the same time, 'consumer-oriented' is the innovation principle that BSH has adhered to for many years, doing the products and services that consumers need, and bringing better product concepts and usage habits to consumers." For kitchen appliances, we will further focus on cultivating consumer habits and actively upgrading and transforming consumers with steaming hobbies and needs. At the same time, since many of our high-end models are imported from overseas, we need to overcome the impact of the epidemic on the supply chain and ensure the stability of goods. ”

Under the premise of adhering to product research and development and technological innovation, the differentiated layout may help the micro-steamed baking category to achieve rapid development in adversity to a certain extent. In this regard, from the perspective of Chinese consumer habits, large-volume, multi-functional products seem to be more popular. On the one hand, large-capacity, enamel, porcelain film inner tank steaming and baking laminating machine is the trend, on the other hand, equipped with large screen, voice, NFC and other functions of the product is also more and more.

Large capacity from the needless to mention, in the past one or two years on the market mainstream micro-steaming brand launched flagship new products, large capacity can be said to be the basic configuration, reporters search Jingdong e-commerce platform, embedded micro-steaming products, 40L or even more than 45L are not a minority. In terms of multi-functional integration, embedded micro-steaming products of brands such as Boss, Fangtai, and Midea are all laid out in terms of enamel liner material, integrated air frying function, and self-cleaning technology. According to Tang Lijuan, the market response after the launch of the boss steaming and frying machine is quite good, "after all, a machine has one more function, and the direction of air frying is right, and everyone thinks that it is healthier than traditional frying." So the next product is basically steaming and frying is a general match, each steaming and grilling machine will have an 'air frying' function. ”

BSH's Siemens all-round new kitchen micro-steaming and grilling machine is excellent in intelligent cooking, it is understood that equipped with the "Home Connect" home interconnection function of Siemens all-round new kitchen micro-steaming grilling machine products can not only achieve full coverage of micro-steaming and grilling a variety of cooking methods, but also can intelligently and quickly pair mobile phones, connect to the network, support remote operation. Consumers can always know the operation of the machine, control the cooking process of dishes, and according to the exclusive recipes provided, realize the purchase of ingredients and cooking with one click. This is in response to Li Jingtao's emphasis, "In the direction of technological development, BSH is mainly laid out in the perspective of convenience and intelligence, hoping to provide users with products with simpler operation and smarter functions, so that every family can easily cook at home and enjoy delicious." ”

For the future development of the micro-steamed grill market, Li Jingtao believes that the micro-steamed baking products in the Chinese market are in the stage of accelerating penetration and maintaining vigorous growth. Although the demand for embedded micro-steaming products in newly renovated homes has been growing in recent years, the overall household penetration rate of embedded products in China is still relatively low, and consumers are not familiar with the category enough, so he believes that BSH is still promising in this field and is willing to actively promote good embedded products into more families. "BSH's steaming oven products are all embedded products, and the current product line layout is very comprehensive: on the one hand, BSH gives full play to the advantages of high-end brands, strengthens the layout and sales of steaming and baking sets, and meets the needs of consumers who specialize in special aircraft; On the other hand, we continue to promote the market for composite machines, such as steaming and grilling two-in-one, micro-steaming and grilling three-in-one products. The goal this year is to achieve double-digit growth," li said.

Wang Weiqiang also analyzed and predicted that micro-steamed baking products are still in the incremental market stage, products with integration advantages to attract consumers, the market will still maintain a growth trend in the next few years, but the growth rate will gradually slow down. Corresponding to the technology + marketing breakthrough strategy of related enterprises, he suggested that the development of micro-steamed baking products of related enterprises needs to further combine the needs of the scene and dig deep into the pain points of users, such as the current boss, Fangtai and other domestic brands to promote steaming and frying products, and integrate the current hot air frying function into it, becoming a hit in the eyes of many consumers; At the same time, from the perspective of cooking, products equipped with online automated updated menus will also provide convenience for many cooking whites. In terms of marketing, it can be combined with categories such as smoke machine cookers and stoves just needed in the kitchen to create a set of products, and enhance user acceptance through the advantage of one-stop purchase.