2024 is a year of challenges and hope for the kitchen appliance industry.
On the one hand, on the basis of last year's long-lost recovery, the growth of the industry this year is under pressure, and the growth problem has become a "mountain" on the head of each manufacturer. On the other hand, with the implementation of a new round of trade-in policies, as well as the shift from urbanization to high-quality development, the rise of young consumer groups, and the application of new technologies, the kitchen appliance industry has ushered in new development opportunities.
According to the Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Trade-in of Consumer Goods, the state will promote a new round of large-scale equipment renewal and trade-in of consumer goods in an orderly manner, and kitchen appliances will also benefit from this.
Entering a new era, the leading kitchen appliance manufacturers have a clearer understanding of how to grow next, and are ready to meet the new growth stage of "stock replacement + quality upgrading".
"With the classification of consumption, China's kitchen appliance industry is experiencing a new stage of development, and the transformation of kitchen life with health, integrity and intelligence as the core is accelerating. In the 2023 annual report released on the evening of April 24, Robam Appliances not only announced its outstanding results, but also showed a series of new categories, new technologies, and new operational explorations.
According to the financial report, in the past year, Robam Appliances has "realized voice control, voiceprint recognition, and multiple dialect recognition", "the IoT platform has been built to support the long connection of hundreds of millions of devices", "the image and AI algorithm have been upgraded, and they have been applied to the recognition of ingredients and cooking maturity, realizing breakthrough applications in all-in-one products......
The rise of a new generation of consumer groups and the penetration of new technologies such as AI and big data in the kitchen appliance industry are pushing the industry into a new era.
As a kitchen appliance faucet, Robam Appliances takes growth as the duty of the enterprise at the same time, it also has the ability and responsibility to lead the kitchen appliance industry to break through with new ideas, new technologies and new models, so as to find new opportunities and seek new growth.
Opportunities for industry differentiation
In the context of the slow growth era of the household appliance industry, the kitchen appliance industry has also entered a low-speed growth stage after several years of rapid growth.
In 2023, the kitchen and bathroom industry ushered in a long-lost recovery, AVC data shows that the retail sales of kitchen and bathroom markets (smoke, stove, electric heating, heating, elimination, washing, embedding, netting, and integrated stoves) will be 166.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. Among them, the rigid demand category (smoke, stove, electric heating, combustion heat) increased by 6.5% year-on-year, and the product demand category (elimination, washing, embedding, and netting) increased by 8.6% year-on-year.
As kitchen appliances enter a new era of growth, industry differentiation has further intensified. In the era of rapid economic growth and continuous consumption upgrading, consumers are more open-minded, enthusiastic about trying new products, and willing to try some new niche brands with bright spots in design and concept, while in the era of uncertainty, consumers are more risk-conscious and more inclined to more stable large groups and brands.
On the one hand, the weak ones are eaten up and even eliminated.
Aowei cloud network data shows that in 2023, from the perspective of the online market, the reshuffle process of the low-end market of range hoods will be faster and more intense than that of the mid-to-high-end. Among them, 264 brands participated in the low-end market below 1500, a decrease of 84 from 19 years, and 135 brands participated in the low-end market of 1500-2400, a decrease of 29 from 19 years.
On the other hand, the strong are stronger.
The head brand has shown a strong brand appeal, and driven by strong categories, the kitchen appliance industry has shown a winner-takes-all situation. Under the background of pressure on the whole industry, the performance of Robam Appliances continues to lead the industry. According to the financial report, its operating income in 2023 will be 11.202 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.06%, a stable growth for 14 consecutive years, and the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 1.733 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.20%.
It should be noted that in the double growth of revenue and net profit, the net profit growth of Robam Appliances is higher than that of revenue, showing its strong business management ability.
In the new era of growth, there are also opportunities. As Kazuo Inamori said, when the economy is booming, companies just blindly grow, without "knots", and become monotonous and fragile bamboo. However, as a result of overcoming various depressions, many "knots" have been formed, and these "knots" are the support for the company's growth again, and the company's structure has become strong and resilient.
In order to grow such a "knot", first of all, it is required that the enterprise must have high returns and high profits in operation: without high returns, enterprises cannot have sufficient funds and resources to resist risks; without high returns, enterprises cannot continue to invest in the low-speed growth stage or when the industry is in recession - on the one hand, the investment cost at this time is lower, and on the other hand, continuing to invest is conducive to the sustainable growth of enterprises.
Returning to the kitchen appliance industry, companies like Robam Appliances that maintain high returns and high market share in operation have more opportunities in the new growth stage.
Consumption differentiation opportunities
Work, Consumerism and the New Poor argues that in a consumer society, economic growth depends not so much on "national productivity" as on the enthusiasm and dynamism of consumers.
At present, the consumption of kitchen appliances presents two major differentiations: first, some consumers are more sensitive to commodity prices and pay more attention to the quality-price ratio; second, the trend of consumption upgrading continues, and the demand for high-quality kitchen appliances such as dishwashers and steaming and baking machines, as well as high-efficiency kitchen appliances such as high-volume range hoods, and at the same time puts forward higher requirements for the quality, design, function and systematization of goods.
According to the data of Aowei cloud network, the market share of kitchen appliances with more outstanding performance in high efficiency is increasing, online, the retail share of large air volume range hoods reached 47.5%, a year-on-year increase of 19.1%, and the retail share of gas stoves with thermal efficiency of 65% and above was 24.3%, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%.
As a result, seizing the opportunity of consumption differentiation has become the main path for the growth of the kitchen appliance industry. Taking Robam Appliances as an example, judging from the 2023 financial report, its growth is inseparable from high-end and systematization, high-quality kitchen appliances and high-efficiency kitchen appliances, multi-brand layout and refined user operation.
First, high-end and systematization are grasped with both hands.
For a long time, the boss has been the representative of high-end kitchen appliances. According to Aowei data, the retail share of Robam Appliances in the offline market of 8000-10000 yuan embedded composite machine is 33.86%, ranking TOP1 in the industry, and in the offline dishwasher market in the 9000+ price range, it also ranks first among domestic brands with a market share of 12.37%.
In 2023, by releasing i7, the industry's first set of digital kitchen appliance product creators, as well as a series of new digital kitchen appliance family products, to promote the digital and intelligent upgrade of all categories, Robam Appliances further consolidated its high-end brand mentality.
With the continuous upgrading of consumer demand and the trend of high-end and complete kitchen appliances, Robam Appliances is realizing the transformation and upgrading of its own products in all categories with digital kitchen appliances.
Second, high-quality kitchen appliances and high-efficiency kitchen appliances are grasped with both hands.
In 2023, the sales proportion of high-efficiency kitchen appliances of Robam Appliances will increase, and Aowei cloud network data shows that the online retail sales market share of Robam Appliances range hoods is 24.73%, and the offline retail sales market share is 30.97%, ranking TOP1 in the industry, of which CXW-260-5009S ranks TOP1 in the retail sales of offline ultra-thin and low-absorption market.
On the basis of the continuous stability of the basic plate of smoke stoves, the dishwasher category of Robam Appliances has maintained rapid growth as a growth plate. According to the financial report, in 2023, its dishwasher revenue will be 760 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.94%, and the proportion of revenue will also increase from 5.78% in 2022 to 6.78%.
Third, multi-brand and refined operation.
At present, focusing on the cooking track, the 9 major sub-brands of Robam Appliances have achieved multi-channel, multi-category, multi-brand and multi-business comprehensive efforts.
In the growth channels such as sinking and home improvement, the layout of Robam Appliances has accelerated. According to the data, in 2023, there will be 3,234 new booth outlets in the sinking channel of Robam Appliances, an increase of 32% over the same period, the number of cooperation outlets of the top 500 head and core customers of home improvement will exceed 3,000, the business model of provincial capital cities will sink to 300 cities, and the home improvement business segment will increase by more than 20% year-on-year.
At the same time, Robam Appliances is starting digital construction in service, R&D, online e-commerce, offline retail, user operation and other sectors, strengthening precise delivery and refined user operation, such as introducing an intelligent dispatch system in the service sector to improve service timeliness and service experience, and completing the national offline retail digital capacity building based on enterprise WeChat.
At present, Robam Appliances is cooperating with Alibaba to create a global marketing digital solution to break the internal data silos of enterprises and comprehensively improve marketing efficiency. By building CDP (consumer asset data/consumer operation data) and other platforms, the full-link visualization from customer acquisition, interest, conversion, and retention is realized, and a global big data business decision-making BA system is built.
The multi-brand layout and refined operation allow Robam Appliances to not miss any opportunity for consumption differentiation, but also to improve operational efficiency, so as to comprehensively and accurately draw growth space from consumption differentiation.
Productivity improvement opportunities
Many people take Japan's lost two decades as a warning to China today. In the lost 20 years in Japan, the head home appliance companies are still growing, which is related to the upgrading of the consumer side on the one hand, and the global development of these enterprises on the other hand. With its technical strength and brand power, Japanese home appliance companies have gone global.
For mainland kitchen appliance enterprises, the current focus is to achieve productivity improvement through technological innovation, paving the way for intensive cultivation of the domestic market and the subsequent expansion of foreign markets. As a kitchen appliance faucet, Robam Appliances has a reserve and layout in AI, digital technology and core technology of kitchen appliances, which provides a reference for other kitchen appliance companies.
In the context of the entire industry undergoing intergenerational technological changes, the "productivity improvement" of kitchen appliances can be divided into two aspects, on the one hand, the core technology of kitchen appliances, such as range hood suction technology, dishwasher cleaning technology, and on the other hand, the research and development and application of digitalization and AI technology.
For a long time, from large suction range hoods, central range hoods to ultra-thin range hoods, Robam Appliances has always adhered to the innovation of core technologies. According to the financial report, as of 2023, it has a total of 4,484 valid patents, including 161 invention patents, and applied for 1,530 patents in 2023, including 617 invention patents and 62 soft copyrights, with a year-on-year increase of 43.4% in the number of patent applications.
As early as two years ago, Robam Appliances used technological innovation to promote kitchen appliances to accelerate into the era of intelligence and AI. Based on generative AI, the first AI cooking assistant Mr. ROKI and digital kitchen appliances were incubated.
In December last year, ROBAM established its corporate positioning as a "full-link overall solution provider for cooking", and this year it continues to deploy on AI and "full-link cooking". In March this year, it established its first subsidiary focusing on AI cooking technology, Boss Chengdu Science and Technology Innovation Co., Ltd. Previously, it was also reported that Robam Appliances will release the world's first cooking AI model.
The new corporate positioning has brought a broader space for growth.
On the one hand, ROBAM covers the whole link before, during, and after cooking, and is a complete closed-loop user experience that integrates hardware, software, content, and ecology. Combined with more than 10,000 offline stores and more than 10 million cooking enthusiasts online, an experience link integrating online drainage, social communication, product interaction, offline experience, and KOC incubation has been formed.
In the context of the collective transformation of the manufacturing industry to the service industry and the realization of deep cultivation of users, Robam Appliances has done a good job in the underlying support.
On the other hand, by focusing on cooking and gathering a large number of high-quality ecological partners in the upstream and downstream of the cooking industry, Robam Appliances takes Chinese cooking as the backbone, expands in an orderly manner for every direction and detail of the cooking scene, and builds a vertical and vertical ecology in the cooking field, including kitchen design and decoration, food and seasoning purchase, dietary nutrition management, cooking capacity assistance, etc.
With the support of AI and digital technology, this road to "cooking full-link overall solution provider" is destined to be broad. At the end of this road, Robam Appliances is leading kitchen appliance companies to continuously achieve self-breakthroughs and find a more solid growth anchor in the future.
epilogue
A tech executive once proposed the idea of a "generational leap", arguing that there are few companies in business history that can lead two eras in a row, because the second era is a disruption of the first.
In the kitchen appliance industry, the times are changing, opportunities and challenges coexist, and it is the giants such as Robam Appliances that have the strength, momentum, and possibility to make a leap. The huge investment in AI and the first-mover advantage of technology are destined to be an era in which innovation is king, and it is also an era in which the strong are king.
Looking back on the past, we will lead the continuous expansion of the market with technological innovation and product innovation, expand the basic market of the industry, do a good job in enterprise operation and achieve continuous growth in performance based on the present, and look forward to the future, continue to transform ourselves with intelligent and digital technology to find a new growth channel for kitchen appliances: this is the continuous leading way of Robam Appliances and the epitome of the continuous evolution of China's kitchen appliances.