In the blink of an eye, it is about to be the New Year, and I still remember that at this time a year ago, integrated stove companies were gearing up for a big job after the epidemic was released. However, the next trend is beyond most people's expectations.
According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, in 2023, the cumulative retail sales of the integrated cooker market will be 24.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.0%, and the cumulative retail volume will be 2.78 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 4.2%. From the estimates and judgments of many industry professionals, the cautious sentiment for 2024 is revealed, and it is foreseeable that the industry will still face severe challenges in the new year.
How can the integrated kitchen industry win the battle in 2024, meet the challenges and tap the opportunities? Where should the vision of the integrated kitchen products be more focused on in the new year?
In short, stick to the main business and continue to deepen while digging deep into the needs of the scene and expanding the integration boundary.
Focusing on the integrated stove, we will deepen and expand the boundaries of integration
As mentioned earlier, perhaps it is the decline of the industry in the past year that has made many people look at the decline of the integrated stove. In fact, this kind of product has been developed for 20 years, and it has been in an upward channel for a long time, which shows that it can stand the test of the market and time.
Part of the reason for the decline in 2023 can be attributed to the cyclical recession, and the development of the industry has twists and turns, which will force enterprises to change and iterate products. Zhang Xiaozhong, secretary general of Shengzhou Kitchenware Industry Association, said.
In fact, since the advent of the first integrated stove product, after many rounds of upgrades, its structural advantages are still significant, such as higher smoke absorption rate and more integrated functions. This also makes the current open kitchen decoration more complementary to this type of product.
Therefore, at the product level, focusing on advantages, 2024 will test the strategic determination and strategic vision of enterprises. The first core is to deepen along the main line of integration, closely follow the main business to do fine and thorough, and establish a good user reputation and mentality of this category by continuously solving the pain points of the kitchen.
And the main line of this product breakthrough can be divided into two forms of expression to interpret.
The first is to do fine and deep in the single-machine intelligence.
At this stage, the integrated cooker product itself cannot be said to be perfect, and there is still a lot of room for iterative progress. In the words of an industry insider, "integrated cooker products are still fragile. ”
Combined with the pain points of the industry, integrated stove products generally appear after a few years of use, such as the wind wheel, the inner tank of the steam oven is difficult to clean, the fan is noisy, it is difficult to maintain, the autonomy of intelligent cooking development, the compatibility is not strong, and the kitchen transformation destroys the countertop. As some companies say: to become a classic, you need to polish it.
To this end, some integrated stove head enterprises have played an exemplary role, and they are also making their own explorations on the path of doing fine and thorough work in the main business, providing a "digging well" direction for product upgrading.
For example, the intelligent washing integrated stove launched by Senge is to try to overcome the pain point that the inner liner of the steam oven of the industry product cannot be cleaned independently by integrating automatic intelligent water supply and drainage and high-temperature sterilization and drying. For example, the Martian NEXT series fusion steaming and baking cooking robot earlier, and the Yitian S9 series integrating ice steaming function, etc., are all exploring a new path for the integrated and intelligent development of kitchenware in their own way.
"Push forward 5 years and 8 years ago, we really couldn't think of the steaming and baking integrated steaming and baking split, and we all thought that it would be good if the steamer was bigger. However, in the past two or three years, the industry has innovated and developed rapidly, which shows that we must believe that the integrated stove industry has enough wisdom to solve product problems," Zhang Xiaozhong said.
The second is to expand around the development idea of integration.
In fact, integrated stove enterprises should also broaden their horizons, and the representative breakthrough measure is to expand the categories related to integration under the premise of adhering to integration, and enrich the product series matrix.
For example, following the trend of deepening the integration of dishwashers and sinks in integrated washing centers, in fact, it has always existed in the industry, and now in the face of structural risks in the industry, the necessity and timeliness of transformation and upgrading have been further strengthened. Like the Martian, as the leader of the integrated dishwasher, it has integrated new technologies such as washing and drying residues into this track, and has realized the search for a new growth curve by virtue of breakthroughs and innovations in core technologies.
Obviously, this kind of integration is no longer centered on stand-alone and single product intelligence, but has begun to move towards kitchen integration through the diversification of categories. At the same time, the upgrading of this integrated route is no longer limited to the enterprise itself, but also a path of regional transformation and upgrading, which should be viewed from a larger industrial perspective and location perspective.
Typical such as in June last year, "China's kitchenware capital" Shengzhou carried out the unveiling of China's integrated intelligent kitchen industry transformation and upgrading pilot area, in the eyes of industry insiders, this is to integrate, intelligent-oriented, to strengthen technological innovation, promote supporting cooperation, update the design concept as the starting point, focus on the development of a full range of products of the set of measures.
In particular, the transformation pilot area also emphasizes the need to vigorously develop the overall matching of stainless steel cabinets, which are also included in the category of integrated kitchens, which injects new vitality into the industry and provides a reference for the path of new development.
This cross-category expansion attempt has also appeared in the figure of integrated kitchen companies, such as Senge, Meiduo, etc., all of which are constantly innovating in stainless steel cabinet products and seeking greater extension of the integrated kitchen scene. In addition, it also includes enterprises that focus on the high-end field of kitchen space, such as Kitchen Kitchen Weilai, to lay out the "genetic transformation" of the kitchen with the idea of creating finished products and scene brands.
As Zhang Zhongbo, President of Kitchen Weilai, said, "The integration of cabinet and electricity is undoubtedly a future trend and manifestation of integrated kitchens, and in the future kitchen, the category boundaries under functional integration must be more and more blurred." We want to see a hundred schools of thought contending. ”
Dig deep into scenarios to meet the update needs of the stock era
Under the breakthrough approach of two integrated products, whether it is a single machine deep digging or scene horizontal expansion, it is impossible to avoid the demand, and when it comes to demand, the general consensus of the current industry is that the integrated stove industry has shifted from new demand to a new stage oriented by new demand.
According to the estimation of real estate big data, there are more than 200 million housing stocks in China, and at a redecoration rate of about 7% per year, more than 15 million housing stock houses are being renovated or partially renovated. In addition, about 15 million new houses are renovated into the market every year, and the market size of the entire housing industry is about 2500-300 billion yuan.
However, huge opportunities are in front of us, for the integrated stove that is deeply dependent on new demand, to overcome the structural shortcomings of the inconvenient replacement, and then cater to the stock era, highlighting a difficult word.
According to the statistics of the Taotian platform, in 2023, the proportion of the online stock market of the double 11 market, the proportion of the kitchen replacement market has reached 70%, if the integrated stove still guards the new market of the integrated stove, the business will only become more and more difficult.
In this situation, in the face of the new market demand, integrated stove enterprises have also given a variety of response ideas, one is to expand to the full range of products, do a good job of systematization, and use matrix thinking to deal with a single structural risk. Zhang Jinxiang, chairman of Chaobang Integrated Cooker, said that in 2024, a full range of products will be built to create intelligent full-scene integrated kitchen appliances. "Our goal is to transform from a single-category manufacturer to a one-stop solution provider of intelligent full-scene kitchen appliances. ”
There are also companies like Banchuan, which have recently launched new products such as near-row split hoods and near-row integrated cooking centers, which are essentially based on following the principle of suction and exhaust of integrated stoves to improve the product structure, which does not destroy the countertop, but also retains the high smoke absorption rate of integrated products, so as to better cater to the kitchen replacement and new housing market.
Of course, more integrated stove companies choose to directly follow up the track of integrated cooking centers, including many head brands such as Yitian and Shuaifeng. Obviously, the integrated kitchen enterprises hope to establish the feasible mind of replacing the old kitchen with the integrated stove in the minds of consumers, and want to share a piece of the pie with the split kitchen appliance enterprises.
Even we found that there are integrated stove companies to passively push three-piece split products, this way to meet the kitchen reform, simple and rude, but also debatable, because on the sales side, a brand has to integrate the stove and the three-piece set coexist, which is tantamount to "left hand to right hand". Therefore, we still believe that category expansion on the basis of sticking to the main business is the foundation of the high-quality development of the brand.
Write at the end:
On the basis of adhering to the main business of integrated cooker, aiming at the intelligence of single products with parameters, functions and structures, and the diversification of categories under the trend of scenario-based, systematized and integrated cabinet and electricity, they can actually bloom two of their own fragrances.
At the same time, it is worth pointing out that the growth of the integrated cooker industry, in addition to relying on the improvement and extension of products, must also pay attention to the establishment of a professional service team, capabilities and systems, especially the kitchen replacement market, in the final analysis, only good service capabilities can support the scale growth of the integrated cooker industry. In 2024, it is bound to be full of gunsmoke.