The 2024 China Home Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo (AWE2024), which attracted global attention, was successfully concluded in Shanghai on March 17. As the highest-standard event in the domestic home appliance industry, each AWE is a stage for major brands at home and abroad to "show their muscles", and it is also the vane of cutting-edge technology in the industry. As the "new three" of contemporary families, the dishwasher category has performed very well in AWE2024. On the whole, dishwashers are gradually becoming a daily necessity for contemporary Chinese families and have entered the fast lane of development.
Dishwashers are gradually becoming a "necessity" for contemporary families
China's dishwasher market first sprouted in 1991 and did not enter the first round of market explosion until 2015. In the past decade, the omni-channel retail sales of China's dishwasher market have climbed from 600 million yuan in 2014 to 11.2 billion yuan in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 34%. 2015 is also often considered to be the first year of the development of the dishwasher market in China, and it was also the year when Chinese consumers came into contact with dishwashers on a large scale. In the process, dishwashers have become a "necessity" in the eyes of a new generation of Chinese consumers. Through AWE2024, the author found that the dishwasher industry has shown four major development trends.
First, the cleaning technology has been changed to crack the oil stain in the Chinese kitchen.
At this stage, there are still many wait-and-see people who have concerns about the cleaning effect, and on the AWE2024, major manufacturers have come up with their own "killer features" in cleaning technology, and the performance of domestic brands is more prominent. The high-energy bubble washing and cleaning technology launched by Fotile realizes water-air hybrid cleaning through a breakthrough in the underlying principle, and cleans all kinds of Chinese-style stubborn stains through stronger water pressure without damaging the tableware. Haier, on the other hand, achieves higher coverage capacity through the positive and negative spray design of the middle spray arm to achieve better cleaning results.
Second, the product plan is involuted to achieve a more thorough replacement of manpower.
The Chinese kitchen scene is complex, and it is difficult to cover a single product. The "double washing" solution can cope with fruit and vegetable cleaning and washing of different dishwashing volumes at the same time, completely freeing up your hands, and will play more possibilities in various kitchen scenarios in the future. A family of three can wash dishes with a small capacity dishwasher, but more than half of the users need a larger dishwasher to meet the needs of pots. The "double washing" scheme of sink dishwasher + built-in dishwasher seen at this exhibition can meet the needs of washing dishes and pots in different scenarios, and at the same time provide fruit and vegetable cleaning, which truly liberates your hands.
Third, appearance is justice, and there are more possibilities for the appearance of the dishwasher.
Dishwashers, as part of the kitchen, are usually dominated by dark colors, and at this AWE, more and more appearance possibilities are happening in the dishwasher. Vantage's pure white package, Boss's salt package, Gloney and Whirlpool's light face products, Fotile's contrasting products, and so on. It can be seen that as more and more consumers recognize dishwashers, the demand for personalized appearance of such products is also increasing rapidly.
Fourth, with a combination of technology, the dishwasher is no longer just a "dishwasher" machine.
From the AWE2024, it can also be seen that the "volume" is not only the cleaning technology, but also the dishwasher has a good performance in sterilization, drying, intelligence and other technologies. The dishwasher should not only be able to wash the dishes, but also perfectly handle a series of scenes and actions after washing the dishes. A dazzling array of drying technologies, such as: hurricane drying, light drying, crystal bud drying, etc., can not only realize the drying of tableware, but also hit a new high in the drying index. In terms of sterilization, the sterilization rate of more than 99.999% is also rolled to the sky, and this series of comprehensive experience is incomparable to hand washing. At the same time, dishwashers are also undergoing innovation from passive intelligence to active intelligence, and the application of AI technology enables them to better understand and adapt to user habits, greatly improving the user experience, and dishwashers are leaping on the road to more versatile and smarter.
The Chinese people's yearning for a better life continues to release market demand
With the steady increase in the income of Chinese residents, consumers' demand for quality life is also constantly being released. As a key new category for the structural upgrading of kitchen appliance brands, dishwashers can greatly reduce the burden of daily housework, provide more free time for Chinese consumers, and at the same time, have incomparable unique advantages in water saving and sterilization; on the other hand, the penetration rate of ovens with the same quality kitchen appliances reaches 30%, while the penetration rate of domestic dishwashers is only 4%. The penetration rate of dishwashers in Europe and the United States is generally more than 50%, the penetration rate of Japan is more than 30%, and the domestic market penetration rate is at a low level.
On the AWE2024, the dishwasher exhibition area of major manufacturers is the most densely populated area, and a variety of clearly visible dishwasher cleaning "black technology" demonstrations have attracted countless people to stop and take a closer look. Judging from the actions of brands at home and abroad, this year's new dishwasher products mainly focus on cleaning, sterilization, drying and other technologies.
Fotile focused on the industry's leading achievements such as the world's first sink dishwasher and the high-energy bubble washing technology that subverts traditional washing technology. According to the "China Dishwasher Patent Innovation Research Report (2024)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") jointly released by the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center and the Electronic Intellectual Property Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently, Fotile won the first three places: "No. 1 in the number of authorized patents related to dishwasher cleaning in China", "No. 1 in high-value patents cited in China's dishwashers", and "No. 1 in the number of authorized patents related to energy conservation and environmental protection of dishwashers in China". At the same time, since 2015, the number of domestic dishwasher brand patent applications has exceeded 2,000, in order to launch dishwashers suitable for Chinese kitchens, continue to break through the core technology, undertake market increments.
At the same time, after nearly a decade of "localization insight" and "market fighting", domestic brands have gradually occupied the minds of the Chinese people and occupied a dominant position in the market. According to the monitoring data of Aowei cloud network, in 2023, 4 of the top 5 brands in the online sales share of domestic dishwashers will be domestic brands, and at the same time, the retail share of the former giant foreign brands will be "swallowed" by domestic brands year by year.
National standards have been introduced, and policies and norms have boosted market popularization
On January 1, 2021, the national standard GB 38383-2019 "Energy Efficiency and Water Efficiency Limits and Grades for Dishwashers" came into effect. This standard is the first national mandatory standard for energy efficiency and water efficiency of dishwashers, which stipulates limit values and test methods for dishwashers' energy efficiency grades, water efficiency grades, drying grades, and cleaning grades. After the implementation of this standard, the performance of dishwashers sold in the domestic market shall not be lower than the requirements of level 5.
As a kitchen appliance product originating in the Western market, the washing method and basket design of dishwashers in the early domestic market are based on Western-style tableware, so the performance of some dishwasher products in the domestic market is "unadaptable". In order to be closer to the cooking and eating habits of Chinese people and better assess the performance of dishwashers in the domestic market, this standard is different from the existing dishwasher test method standards, and clearly stipulates the requirements for the use of Chinese tableware in the test for the first time. Schematic diagram of some of the test Chinese tableware, including the most representative Chinese tableware such as rice bowls, noodle bowls, chopsticks, and condiment plates. The implementation of this standard has promoted the process of localized design of dishwashers, and the products in the domestic market have gradually evolved into "Chinese dishwashers" that can truly free their hands.
With the continuous introduction of new products and market education by major brands, especially domestic brands, dishwashers are accelerating the acceptance of hundreds of millions of families in China and becoming an indispensable part of daily life. Most of China's young consumers have experienced a psychological process from doubt, to affirmation, and then to the crazy "Amway" to others, and dishwashers are also widely known as "real fragrance" appliances.
In the future, with the continuous deepening of consumer insights and continuous investment in product innovation by major brands, it is not difficult to predict that dishwashers will enter more Chinese families and become their companions for high-quality life. (Ningbo Fangtai Kitchenware Co., Ltd. Pan Qi Pan Jiawei)