By Huang Xin and Tu Lingbo
On July 31, 2010, China Kitchen & Bathroom Electric Appliance Market Forum was hosted by Chinese Market Survey and Research Center in Beijing. According to the 2010 China Kitchen and Bathroom Electric Appliance Market Development Blue Paper issued by the forum, the first half of 2010 witnessed an RMB46.16 billion yuan worth of kitchen and bathroom electric appliance market. It's predicted that the whole market value of 2010 will reach RMB92 billion yuan. The market is experiencing a rapid growth with a rate of 25 percent annually.
Chen Gang, Deputy Secretary-general of China Household Electrical Appliances Association believes that the history of China's home appliance industry is not long and the kitchen and bathroom electric appliance enterprises are still at the growth stage. Brand-building and technology development are their top priorities now. The blue paper reveals that primary brands have shown enhanced competitiveness obviously. Brands such as Midea, Galanz and Fotile possess the leading rank in the occupation ratio of market. In the subdivided market, such a ratio of Joyoung soy milk maker even occupies 60.75 percent of the market share.
"Every brand has to experience the repeated tests of the market. It's a long process marked by the integration of culture and core competitiveness." said Ma Yide, a professor of Peking University. Since producing kitchen and bathroom electric appliances don't need advanced technology, it's easy for manufacturers to produce things similar to each other and therefore form cut-throat competition. Therefore companies have to focus on product innovation. Only in this way can they provide consumers with products that fit them best and win consumers' favor.
To upgrade kitchen and bathroom electric appliances has become the demand of both manufacturers and customers. Systemization and integration have become the obvious characteristics of kitchen and bathroom electric appliances. And in the upgrade of products, the key factors rest with value appreciation, technology innovation, accurate consumer needs positioning, expansion of different market products, enhanced R&D of product and service improvement. According to the introduction of Pan Jihong, Market Manager of Fotile Group, Fotile had upgraded its service and products by lunching services such as range hoods pipe embedding and dust-free automatic mallet installment. Midea will also release a microwave oven using frequency conversion technology soon. Except for traditional heating and grilling functions, it also provides the function of steam heating to meet the traditional cooking habit of Chinese people.
Talking about the development trend of kitchen and bathroom electric appliances, Cheng Gang gives a summary. Firstly, energy-saving and environmental protection technology will be a necessary condition for future R&D. Meanwhile, old products of high energy consumption will be quickly replaced by means of such policies as "home appliances going to the countryside" and "old home appliances for new ones". Secondly, appearance innovations will be the trend of future products R&D. In today's market where there's increasing competition among products of the same kind, home appliance makers shall increase the performance-cost ratio of their products by bring modern feel to kitchens. Thirdly, smart technology will be the direction of future product R&D, bringing consumers with experience of more convenient and smart kitchen and bathroom electric appliances.
On the assumption that upgrading product structure and meeting consumers' compositive needs for products in appearance, function and performance are the basics, expanding terminal channels of kitchen and bathroom electric appliance product market and enlarging the coverage area of products are then what manufacturers have to focus on in the face of ever increasingly competitive kitchen and bathroom electric appliance market.
According to Shan Yu, Chief Retail Research Officer of Chinese Market Survey and Research Center, most of China's kitchen and bathroom electric appliances are sold through comprehensive home appliance shops, shopping malls and department stores. Statistics shows that comprehensive home appliance shops contributed the most retail volume with the proportion of almost 66.63 percents while shopping malls and department stores took up 20 percent and 10 percent respectively in the first half of year 2010.
Developing marketing channels is one of the difficulties the industry of kitchen and bathroom electric appliances confronts with, as well as the key to promote its development. Having limited retail channels mainly in such modes as comprehensive home electronics shops and large sized storage supermarkets, enterprises' profit space is usually squeezed. Therefore, to expand marketing channels is extremely important for enterprises involved in kitchen and bathroom electric appliances, especially for those small-and-medium-sized ones of weaker competitive ability, and for the purpose to standardize competitive structure of entire kitchen and bathroom electric appliance market.
In the future, the establishment and perfection of on-line shopping and home appliance chain supermarkets, and so on, will help each other in promoting the development of China's kitchen and bathroom electric appliance industry. It's reported international retail giants, such as Metro AG from Germany and Yamada Denki from Japan are now planning to develop the market in China. This will bring more choice of channels for China's kitchen and bathroom electric appliance industry and enhance the development and expansion of the marketing channels of China's kitchen and bathroom electric appliance industry.
