Midea Smart Home and Haier Smart Home sound the clarion call for a new round of AI competition

ChatGPT is very popular, and all walks of life can’t wait to put on the "armor" of AI large models. Some companies develop AI large models by themselves, and some companies join hands with leading technology companies to seek to maximize the value of smart products. The smart home appliance industry No exception.

In China, Baidu AI large model Wenxin Yiyan attracted ecological partners from all walks of life as soon as it was launched. TCL, Hisense Video, Midea and other home appliance brands have also announced their access to "Wenxin Yiyan", becoming The first batch of ecological partners of Baidu Wenxinyiyan. Other home appliance manufacturers choose to cooperate with ChatGPT. For example, the home appliance brand Hamilton released the world's first home appliance product "AI Steak Air Fryer" that applies ChatGPT.

From single smart home appliances to smart home appliance product matrices, and then to smart homes with smart brains, the intelligence level of home appliances is increasing day by day, but doubts about "pseudo-intelligence" still exist. The application of AI large model technology provides leading companies such as Haier Smart Home and Midea Smart Home with good opportunities to improve, thereby solving the bottleneck in the intelligentization of home appliances.

AI large model becomes a new variable

After a long period of exploration and rapid growth, the growth rate of the smart home appliance industry has gradually slowed down, and related companies are pinning their growth hopes on the application of new technologies. According to statistics, in the overall smart home market, the overall industry penetration of AI technology in 2022 will be approximately 25%. With the improvement of users’ requirements for home safety and comfort and the improvement of technology maturity, AI technology will penetrate more into various industries. Category products.

Haier Smart Home and Midea Smart Home have always been pursuing the "ultimate smart form" of home appliances, that is, fully automatic, self-learning, and self-sensing smart home appliances. The implementation of AI large model technology has given them hope and become smart home appliances. New variables in home appliance brand competition.

For home appliance companies, the access to large AI models is expected to improve the self-learning capabilities of smart home appliances, optimize the interactive experience of products, realize intelligent upgrades of products, and enhance product competitiveness. Smart home appliance companies will create new products, new models and new business formats through a variety of new AI technologies to achieve high-quality development.

Midea official said: "After accessing Baidu Wenxinyiyan's capabilities, Midea smart homes and Midea home service robots will be able to give priority to internal testing and trial Wenxinyiyan's many capabilities, which will significantly enhance the quality of existing products and services. Intelligent level, we will work with Baidu technical team to create solutions for smart home scenarios."

For AI large model manufacturers, the implementation of AI large model technology is in the initial exploration stage. The rapid iterative development of smart home appliances is one of the best implementation scenarios. In the future, more smart home appliances will be connected to AI large models, which can improve AI The implementation efficiency and effect of large model technology.

The combination of "AI large models and smart home appliances" provides consumers with more convenient interaction methods and richer content. In terms of intelligent upgrading of home appliances, AI large models play an important role. For example, AI large model technology allows people to control all home appliances through voice, making it easy to turn on lights, TVs, and air conditioners, improving people's smart home life. experience.

In short, the smart home appliances currently on the market are still in the initial stage of intelligence. Accessing AI large model technology optimizes product interaction experience and achieves efficient, vivid, and sustainable human-computer interaction. Haier Smart Home, Midea Smart Home, etc. The AI ​​battle between leading players such as Jia Jia and others will also enter a new dimension.

AI marketing activates new growth

In addition to products, smart home appliance companies are engaged in ongoing marketing wars. Many smart home appliance companies have launched promotions to stimulate consumption, resulting in a steady growth in sales of smart home appliances.

Suning.com released May Day consumption big data showing that Suning.com’s store customer flow increased by 23% year-on-year, sales of green energy-saving home appliances increased by 56% year-on-year, sales of smart home appliances and household goods increased by 73% year-on-year, and stores exceeded 50,000 yuan. Purchase orders increased by 65% ​​year-on-year.

In terms of channels, in addition to offline stores and traditional e-commerce platforms, smart home appliance companies have settled on short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou or on their own APPs to start their live streaming career. It is reported that Haier’s official flagship store has nearly 2 million users on Douyin, while Midea’s official flagship store also has more than 1.6 million users.

Channel diversification has brought new growth opportunities. In the new quarter, Haier Smart Home achieved double net profit. Haier Smart Home's first quarter performance report for 2023 shows that in the first quarter of this year, Haier Smart Home achieved revenue of 65.066 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8%; net profit of 3.971 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.6%; non-net profit after deduction of 3.7 billion yuan , a year-on-year increase of 16%.

It is worth mentioning that AI technology also brings strong assistance to the marketing of smart home appliance companies.

In recent years, Midea has used AI technology to achieve transformation and upgrading from traffic operations to user operations. Based on AI technology, it analyzes the differentiated needs of different users, upgrades full-process transactions and interactive services, and realizes by strengthening content and digital marketing. Accurate brand exposure and accurate product placement greatly reduce marketing costs.

It is expected that Midea will use intelligent technology to optimize multiple industrial links such as R&D, manufacturing, and marketing. Last year, Midea proposed the "Digital Midea 2025" goal: "Business online must reach 100%; data businessization, digital-driven operations must reach 70%, intelligent decision-making must reach 40%, and the core indicator system must be 10 times that of today... ".

AI capabilities have become an important consideration for advertisers when choosing digital marketing service providers. Companies that embrace AI to help promote marketing upgrades include not only Midea Smart Home and Haier Smart Home. According to the survey results of the "2022 AI Marketing White Paper", 44% of companies believe that AI marketing is the most anticipated marketing method in the next two years, and 63% of companies pay more attention to "AI technical strength" when choosing an agency.

By using AI technology, we can quickly understand user needs, accurately reach potential users, and improve brand communication efficiency. Secondly, AI marketing tools can assist in generating personalized content and marketing ideas, helping companies better formulate marketing plans; thirdly, the use of AI products such as virtual digital humans and intelligent customer service optimizes service experience and improves marketing efficiency.

Haier Intelligence and Midea Intelligence have broadened marketing channels, used the power of AI to achieve long-term user management, and also forged strong brand competitiveness for their high-end and globalization.

High-end and globalization add new momentum

In recent years, home appliance companies such as Haier Smart Home and Midea Smart Home have moved to the high-end market, building high-end brands, launching high-end products, and entering overseas markets to build a second growth curve.

2022 financial report data shows that Haier Smart Home’s overseas revenue accounted for 52% (126.1 billion), Midea’s 41.5% (142.6 billion), and Gree’s 12.2% (23.2 billion). Among them, Haier Smart Home’s overseas independent brand sales accounted for almost 100%, and Gree Electric’s overseas independent brand sales accounted for 50%.

In terms of overseas layout, Midea focuses on OEM overseas to earn processing fees. Most of its overseas revenue comes from OEM orders, while Haier Smart Home chooses its brand to go overseas and builds overseas brand effects through independent brand management. Following the same path but using different strategies, both Midea and Haier have achieved substantial growth, which proves that there are still many untapped home appliance markets overseas waiting to be cultivated.

Globalization and high-endization have become the consensus for the development of home appliance companies. Haier and Midea continue to acquire overseas high-end home appliance brands to accelerate the construction of high-end home appliance brand matrix, and overseas competition has further intensified.

Recently, there are rumors that Midea intends to acquire the famous Swedish high-end brand Electrolux, but Midea claims that the matter is still in the research and evaluation stage, and there is no confirmed news. Prior to this, the United States acquired Japan's Toshiba home appliance business, Italian central air-conditioning company CLIVET, American vacuum cleaner company EUREKA, and German robot manufacturer KUKA.

Coincidentally, Haier has successively acquired a series of overseas brands such as GE Appliances (general white goods in the United States), Fisher & Paykel (New Zealand), Aqua (Japan) and Candy (Italy). Through "buy, buy, buy", Haier has built a brand matrix and quickly occupied the high-end market. Smart home appliance market.

Midea and Haier have entered a period of profit after a long period of R&D investment, brand promotion and marketing in the high-end market. Haier Smart Home's high-end home appliance brand Casarte's revenue has exceeded 20 billion yuan in 2022, continuing to rank first in the high-end market. Midea's high-end brand COLMO's overall retail sales exceeded 8 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 90% .

At the same time, the "high-end battle" between Haier and Midea has shifted from high-end single brand, single product, and single scene to high-end whole-house intelligence. Haier created the whole-house intelligent scene brand Sanyiniao, and Midea created "Midea Smart Home" , based on the home scene and using multiple interactive methods as a means to realize intelligent connection of home appliances and enhance the experience of using high-end smart home appliances.

It must be said that home appliance companies such as Haier Smart Home and Midea Smart Home continue to promote high-end and global brands, broadening the market space and increasing profit margins. The competition in the smart home appliance market is not yet over.

Blowing the clarion call for a new round of competition

The home appliance market is a red ocean, and intelligence, scenario-based, and globalization are becoming the growth drivers for smart home appliance companies.

Tracking report data from global market research institution IDC shows that China’s smart home equipment market shipments will exceed 260 million units in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 17.1%. It is expected that the smart home market will develop rapidly in the future, and market shipments are expected to increase in 2025. Close to 540 million units, the market size will exceed 800 billion yuan.

Opportunities and challenges coexist. The progress and development of AI technology poses new AI application challenges to smart home appliance companies. At the same time, the personalized needs of a new generation of consumers force smart home appliance companies to continuously innovate products, scenarios and services. Domestic smart home appliances There is a long way to go for enterprises to break through.

The application of new technologies is expected to improve the self-perception, self-coordination and self-learning capabilities of smart home appliances. Today's mainstream smart home appliances still require mobile phones or remote controls to control them. "It's tasteless to eat and a pity to throw away." Even with voice interaction functions, there are still voice recognition problems. There is still a long way to go to truly realize the intelligent transformation of home appliances. Gotta go.

On the other hand, changes in user groups will promote the diversified and personalized development of smart home appliances. As time goes by, young people, mainly "Generation Z", have become the main force in home appliance consumption. They have high requirements for product appearance, creativity, and quality, and these home appliance consumption needs will become the research and development direction of home appliance companies. It is also a new challenge.

For home appliance companies, price competition and channel competition have become a thing of the past. Technological innovation and refined user operations have become the key to winning the competition in smart home appliances. Therefore, they have technological innovation capabilities, refined operational capabilities and a strong ecosystem. The players in the system may ultimately win.

2023 is about to pass halfway, and the smart home market has sounded a new round of competition.

Source: Liu Kuang

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