On the evening of April 29, Haier Smart Home released its 2024 first quarter report. According to the financial report, Haier Smart Home achieved operating income of 68.98 billion yuan in Q1, a year-on-year increase of 6%, net profit attributable to the parent company of 4.77 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.2%, net profit of 4.64 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.4%, profit growth rate continued to exceed revenue growth, net cash flow generated by operating activities was 1.72 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.3%, and the quality of operation continued to improve steadily.
From the perspective of performance, Haier Smart Home continued the steady growth trend of the 2023 annual report, and achieved high growth in 2024Q1 on the basis of last year's high base, exceeding expectations. This shows that Haier Smart Home has achieved a significant improvement in performance by insisting on global brand creation, promoting digital transformation and implementing smart homes.
Casarte continued to grow by double digits, and Haier's industries continued to lead
At present, consumers' demand for home appliances is no longer limited to the use of functions, but the pursuit of higher life experience, this change has prompted home appliance companies to continue to innovate and transform, and continue to meet the new needs of the market with cutting-edge technology and high-end products.
In this regard, Casarte's revenue growth accelerated sequentially by deepening the layout of packaged products and accelerating the construction of shopping mall contact points. According to the financial report, Casarte continued to achieve double-digit growth in 2024Q1. Casarte also ranks first in the high-end market in many categories: the retail sales share of refrigerators above 10,000 yuan is 39.3%, the retail sales share of washing machines above 10,000 yuan is 84.1%, and the retail sales share of air conditioners above 15,000 yuan is 25.3%.
Today's Casarte has become the choice of more than 20 million users, and has achieved TOP1 in the high-end market for 8 consecutive years. In order to accelerate the development, at this year's AWE, Casarte and Boloni started a strategic cooperation to create an artist-centric solution for users. In addition, Casarte also accelerated its overseas layout, in the past Milan International Furniture Fair and Milan Design Week, Casarte refrigerator with cabinets, refrigerators and wine cabinets unbounded combination appeared at the exhibition, showing the balance of art, space and life in the "fashion capital".
At the same time, Haier Smart Home has always adhered to scientific and technological innovation, promoted product iteration and upgrading, and continuously solved user pain points, achieving continuous leadership. For example, Haier's full-space fresh-keeping refrigerator, which solves the problem of "large temperature fluctuations" and other food storage problems in the user's freezing area, will increase its market share to 16.4% in 2024Q1 after surpassing one brand in one category in 2023, continuing to "surpass one brand in one category"; In order to meet the needs of easy operation, Haier Air Conditioner has launched the Lingxi series of air conditioners equipped with original technologies such as cool core bridges, heat flow defrosting, variable diversion and intelligent offline voice systems, which have become the TOP1 popular models in direct sales channels.
Haier Smart Home, which solves user needs with original technology, ranks first in the industry in terms of market share of refrigerators and washing machines, with offline market shares of 43.4% and 46.1% respectively.
In order to better serve users, Haier Smart Home also held the "Haier Better Life Renewal Season" and launched the "Green Carbon Plan", focusing on the four new propositions of health, green, wisdom and beauty, bringing users a green, low-carbon and beautiful life. For example, in terms of green renewal, Haier Boguan refrigerator saves more than 15% energy compared with traditional refrigerators, Haier essence washing machine saves 38% water consumption and 29% electricity consumption, and Haier air conditioner saves 38% water consumption and 29% electricity consumption.
Overseas high-end branding, operating profit year-on-year double-digit growth
In the face of the challenge of declining demand in major home appliance markets in Europe and the United States, Haier Smart Home has achieved sustained growth by launching leading products that meet the needs of local users, deepening the layout of local supply chain and sales network, and giving full play to global R&D, procurement, supply chain, and logistics collaboration.
For example, at the Canton Fair in the spring of this year, the X11 washing machine launched by Haier Smart Home in response to problems such as energy shortage in Europe is the result of global collaboration through R&D centers in Europe, Australia, China and other places. The washing machine also uses 50% more energy than Europe's highest A-class energy efficiency standard, and has a grid index of 275 after being launched in Poland.
According to the financial report, in 2024Q1, Haier Smart Home's overseas revenue increased by 4% year-on-year, and its operating profit increased by 10%+ year-on-year. In terms of regions, in the European and American markets, Haier's share of smart homes continues to increase. According to GfK data, in January ~ February this year, Haier Smart Home's sales share in the European market increased by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year to 9%. In South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Haier Smart Home's revenue growth exceeded double digits.
With the support of the three major capabilities of Three-winged Bird, the retail sales of stores increased by 30% year-on-year
In the fiercely competitive home appliance market, enterprises cannot do without two directions if they want to continue to grow: one is to tap new increments in the stock market, and the other is to create new incremental markets. And in both aspects, the three-winged bird has been laid out.
On the one hand, the demand and potential for upgrading the home appliance market is huge. Users need a new refrigerator, a new washing machine, etc., but a new kitchen, a new way of life. Three-winged bird provides users with a beautiful smart life solution that is in place in one step and good at one time.
On the other hand, to create new increments is to provide differentiated solutions that no one else has. Three-winged Bird, which has been in existence for 3 years, is leading the industry into a new era of "home appliance and home integration", and with the support of customization, delivery and intelligence, it is accelerating the implementation of the smart home appliance integration strategy, and realizing the continuous growth of terminal stores and users' daily activity.
According to the financial report, in 2024Q1, the daily activity of the three-winged bird scene increased by 32% year-on-year, the number of stores increased by 85% year-on-year, and the retail sales of three-winged bird stores increased by 30% year-on-year.
The effect of digital transformation is significant, and the rate is optimized by 0.8pct
In the era of digital economy, Haier Smart Home has comprehensively deepened its digital transformation, and its rate optimization has been obvious. According to the financial report, the rate of Haier Smart Home in 2024Q1 will be optimized by 0.8pct. Among them, thanks to the efficiency improvement of marketing resource allocation, logistics distribution and warehousing operations, Haier Smart Home's sales expense ratio was 13.1%, an optimization of 0.5 percentage points over the same period last year, and through the use of digital tools and redesign of business processes, Haier Smart Home improved the efficiency of organizational personnel, so that the management expense ratio was optimized by 0.3 percentage points compared with the same period last year to 3.2%.
While the rate continues to be optimized, the profitability of Haier Smart Home has also continued to improve, and its net profit margin has increased from 6.3% in the 2023 annual report to 6.9% in 2024Q1. In addition, a number of operational indicators of Haier Smart Home continued to improve steadily, with continuous improvement in operational efficiency and capital use efficiency, and the inventory turnover days of Haier Smart Home in 2024Q1 were optimized by 1.5 days compared with the end of 2023.
Against the backdrop of intensified competition in the industry and a volatile external environment, Haier Smart Home's 2024 first quarter report released a signal that exceeded expectations to the outside world, demonstrating the strong resilience and growth potential of the company's operations. In the long run, with the continuous promotion of digital fee reduction and efficiency improvement, as well as the continuous opening up of new growth space for global brands, Haier Smart Home will usher in more development opportunities and embark on a broader path of high-quality development.