In 2019, which has just ended, the home appliance industry is particularly lively.

In this year, the 50-year-old Midea Group successfully acquired Little Swan; Haier announced a name change and announced a high-profile announcement to enter the Internet of Things ecosystem; TCL completed major asset restructuring and delivery during the year; Gree Electric first reported Oaks After that, it started a price war in the industry, and with a share transfer of up to 45 billion yuan, it has become the most concerned company in the capital market.

Behind the series of actions of home appliance companies is that the "ceiling" effect of the industry, which has been talked about for many years, has begun to appear on companies. Since 2019, the performance data of the three giants of the home appliance industry, Midea, Gree and Haier, have all slowed down to varying degrees.

In the face of reality, the giants of traditional home appliances seem to have begun to take action in order to find new upside space and deal with the arrival of industry bottlenecks.

"Diversity" without breakthrough, "acquisition and expansion" is difficult to continue

Since the announcement of the third quarter report of 2019, Gree Electric's near-zero revenue growth has caused market concern. The non-net profit attributable to mothers and mothers has decreased by 6% year-on-year, and the growth in revenue and net profit in the fourth quarter has been further under pressure.

"Don't always mention the ceiling of the air-conditioning industry," Mingzhu Dong said in the face of a reporter's question at the headquarters of Gree Electric a few days ago. In her eyes, the ceiling always belongs to others. In previous interviews, Mingzhu Dong mentioned more than once that "Gree does not have a ceiling."

However, from the full-sale promotion in early 2019 to the initiative to initiate a price war at the end of the year, it seems from the outside world that it has the intention of clearing inventory and grabbing market share. During the interview on the 28th, with regard to the question "How much sales can be promoted by subsidy promotion a while ago," Dong Mingzhu said that the subsidy was not purely to drive sales, but "to perform its due duties at the height of the country."

Mingzhu Dong also added that through acquisitions, there may be a rapid development. "For example, if you buy an enterprise, sales will increase by several tens of billions immediately, but this is not my goal. I also hope to cultivate a complete, promising A R & D team with sustainable capabilities. "

This sentence seems to mean something. In the past 2019, Midea Group acquired Little Swan's income through a share swap merger. And Haier, another giant of home appliances, also has the operation of acquiring rapid development through acquisition.

In recent years, Haier has achieved good results in overseas battlefields through global M & A expansion. As of the third quarter of 2019, Haier ’s overseas market revenue accounted for 47%, an increase of 25%.

However, a series of mergers and acquisitions at the expense of heavy capital has led to Haier 's net cash flow from investment activities being negative throughout the year. Since 1998, except for Haier 's investment activities in 2003, which had a net cash flow of 206 million yuan, the rest of the years were negative.

For example, as Mingzhu Dong said, "All Gree brands are not acquired, and there are no foreign brand hats." Zhiping Song also mentioned at the "Let the World Fall in Love with China" Summit Forum held on December 28 last year that Gree has been sticking to its main business for so many years.

Whether it ’s good or bad to stick to your main business? Since listing, Gree Electric's air-conditioning revenue accounted for about 80%, which has become the main engine driving Gree's growth. At the end of 2019, Mingzhu Dong said in an interview with the media that I hope that everyone does not know about air conditioning when talking about Gree, but also think of refrigerators and washing machines, because the era of the Internet of Things for home appliances has arrived.

The past Gree was indeed deeply branded by the air conditioner. As early as 2012, "diversification" appeared in the annual report for the first time as a strategy for the company's future development. In 2016, Gree officially announced its entry into the era of diversity.

After more than three years, Gree's diversification has been slow to break through. Whether it is a Gree mobile phone that claims that "selling 100 million units is not a problem" or investing in a new energy vehicle company in Zhuhai Yinlong, from the perspective of industry insiders, such a diversification strategy seems to lack rules, "from nothing to anything It is very dangerous to do it. "

The "Internet of Things" transformation has a long way to go

Looking back on 2019, facing the weak growth of the traditional home appliance industry and the fading of dividends, the giants of traditional home appliances have sought new upsides and embarked on the road of digital exploration.

6In June 2019, Qingdao Haier Paper changed its name from "Qingdao Haier Co., Ltd." to "Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd." and announced its determination to accelerate its entry into the "Internet of Things Smart Home Ecology".

Haier, anxious to get rid of the label of traditional home appliance manufacturers, has laid out a "smart life" for five years. From the current revenue structure, the traditional home appliance business based on ice washing and air conditioning is still the mainstay of Qingdao Haier's revenue.

As of the first half of 2019, the Internet of Things (IoT) ecological revenue still accounts for less than 2%. For the time being, the status quo of traditional household appliances businesses such as ice-washing and air-conditioning can increase revenue.

At the end of 2019, news about Haier's intending to privatize Haier Electric came out. There has always been a certain overlap and overlap in business between Haier Electric. Industry insiders said that if Haier Electric is successfully transformed into Haier Its subsidiaries will facilitate efficient decision-making within Haier and improve the efficiency of Haier Group's asset management and unified operations.

Also the breakthrough point is the technological transformation of Midea Group. Midea set the goal of the transformation technology group in early 2019, and put forward the slogan of "Initiating the battle of innovation with industrial digitalization and the industrial Internet M.IoT platform".

However, from the financial report data, Midea Group's R & D investment has not increased, and has remained below 4% since 2014. The highly anticipated performance of the KUKA robotics business also fell short of expectations, and revenue contribution in 2018 decreased by 1.36 billion yuan.

The industrial Internet platform "M.IoT" has entered the market late, and the competition for market share has become fierce. New businesses need continuous investment, which also brings uncertainty to the future development of Midea.

For Mingzhu Dong , who has rarely spoken in the field of Internet of Things, he has recently started to repeatedly mention Internet of Things technology and 5G technology. In the China Brand Powerful Grand Ceremony held on December 15, 2019, Mingzhu Dong said that the future is an intelligent era, and the era of home appliances and the Internet of Things has arrived.

As early as in the financial report released in April 2019, Gree Electric revealed that the company will build an IoT mobile phone with Gree characteristics and achieve a breakthrough in 5G mobile phone technology research. However, actual sales are not optimistic. According to rumors, due to poor sales, Gree mobile phones can only rely on internal digestion. Obviously, Gree's IoT layout has not yet entered the track.

Source: Sohu