Text丨Sina Technology Zhou Wenmeng
The 2024 China Home Appliance and Consumer Electronics Fair (AWE 2024 for short) opens in Shanghai. According to statistics, more than 1,000 home appliance and consumer electronics companies participated in the exhibition today.
As the top three traditional home appliances, Midea, Haier, and Gree have always attracted attention. How did they perform at the exhibition?
Midea Group: Disappeared again?
Sina Technology searched the entire AWE pavilion and never saw the “Midea Group” booth. The only one that appeared was its brand GMCC Mishiba.
In fact, as early as 2021, the Midea Group began to weaken its participation in AWE. After AWE did not host in 2022 due to the impact of the pandemic, Midea began to miss AWE in 2023, only sending its industrial technology brands to participate in the exhibition.
Behind Midea's absence from the AWE exhibition, it actually reflects a microcosm of the transformation and development of the home appliance industry at this stage.
Some Midea insiders revealed to Sina Technology, “Currently, out of the five major business segments of Midea, including smart home, building technology, robotics and automation, and innovative businesses, there are four major business segments that target the To-B business, but AWE as a whole is more biased towards C-end consumers. Group participation may not achieve the desired results, so the Group is also reducing participation and allowing its business segments to independently decide whether to participate.”
Haier Smart Home: “Showcasing” more than 100 pioneering technologies
Haier must have been among the busiest booths at AWE exhibitions over the years. As one of the leaders in the domestic home appliance industry, the single-person model, ecological brand strategy, and digital capabilities promoted and implemented by Haier have frequently become targets for the home appliance industry to emulate and learn.
This year, Haier Smart Home brought 5 major brands, Haier, Casadi, Leader, Fisher & Pike, and Tri-Wings to the AWE site, showcasing 101 pioneering technologies in the industry, including flat embedding, essence washing, and crystal gall. In addition, at the press conference, Haier Smart Home also unveiled the new achievements of creating a world-class enterprise — number one in the world and number one in the high-end.
In fact, as the home appliance industry enters a stage of stock competition, how to provide products in a more innovative, cost-effective, and more balanced way has become the key for home appliance companies to continuously compete for victory. For example, in AWE this year, Haier's smart home ecosystem brand Triwingbird broke the boundaries between home appliances and home furnishings by focusing on the smart home appliance integration strategy, and raised the “volume” of the home appliance industry to a new level through integrated delivery of home appliances.
Gree Electric: Becoming “green”?
As another member of the top three domestic white goods companies, Gree Electric has created the three major beauty life experience centers of “comfortable life,” “healthy life,” and “convenient life” under the theme of “Beautiful Life Made by Gree.” On the day of launch, a press conference on “A Beautiful Life Made by Gree” and a press conference on the “Gree Family's New Strategy” were also held, which focused on showcasing the company's new brand concept.
On the afternoon of March 14, with the launch of the “Gree Comfort Home New Strategy” press conference, Gree Family Central Air Conditioning announced a full upgrade to “Gree Comfort Home”. According to reports, Gree Shuxiangjia includes three business segments: green energy, comfortable environment, and smart living, covering eight series of products: light (wind) electricity, energy storage, central air conditioning, floor heating, fresh air, whole house appliances, healthy water, and smart home. It is committed to creating a green, healthy and comfortable home environment in a comprehensive and systematic manner.
Behind this strategic shift, more “green and low-carbon” elements have been introduced into the Gree Electric brand genes. It further reflects the company's efforts and social responsibility in ESG governance.
According to Gree, it has been deeply involved in the green and low-carbon field for many years. Of the 44 leading international technologies it currently has, 41 are related to green energy saving, making Gree's contribution to the world's entry into the low-carbon era.
Conclusion:
In addition to the news of the three giants, artificial intelligence has once again become a hot topic in this year's AWE. At the exhibition site, Haier Smart Home Brain integrated the home model HomeGPT with Haier's full range of smart home appliances to achieve deep control of home appliances, bringing users a more natural and deeper human-like interaction experience.
In addition, Boss Electric also revealed that it will release the world's first cooking AI model in the near future. The big model was developed by a top domestic laboratory in cooperation with Boss Electric. It will empower kitchen appliances through technology to create the industry's first digital kitchen appliance and the world's first AI cooking assistant.
Compared to that, Samsung has more directly called out the slogan “AI for all,” and its determination and optimism about AI is beyond description.
Every AWE is an important moment for domestic and foreign home appliance companies to focus on showcasing and discussing with local dealers and people inside and outside the industry. When companies are exhibiting their own products, they are also more inclined to combine the directions of scenario-based, intelligent, global, and green and low-carbon to show more sense of social responsibility and responsibility.