Gearbest Tech
2018 was the highlight of the entire air-conditioning industry in recent years. Although the retail volume of 57.03 million units was somewhat inferior to the data in 2019, the annual retail sales of 201 billion yuan was significantly higher than the 197.9 billion yuan in 2019. Compared with the data in 2016, the retail sales in 2018 increased by more than 30%, but after the peaks in 2018 and 2019, the entire market became sluggish again. Although the data in 2021 did not continue to fall, this number is not exciting, and the data so far in 2022 cannot make practitioners optimistic.
<img alt="China's air conditioner market retail sales over the years quoted from China Business Information Network” title=”China's air conditioner market retail sales over the years quoted from China Business Information Network” align=”1″ src=”https://img.cnmo.com/2029_600x375/2028121.png”>
China's air conditioning market retail sales over the years cited from China Business Information Network
The reasons for this situation are multi-dimensional. Since 2020, many industries have been hit hard by well-known reasons. On the other hand, it also proves that when the air conditioner, a household appliance we are familiar with, has no essential changes in its working principle, the micro-innovations and marketing gimmicks that manufacturers try to make are difficult to really move consumers to pay for it.
In addition to the C-end market, when the real estate industry encountered a downward cycle, related upstream and downstream industries were also greatly affected. As a fairly mature industry, air conditioners, as a well-known household appliance, encountered sluggish growth on the B-end, which seemed to indicate that it had entered the stock market. Gearbest recently launched special content related to stock and increment, aiming to invite brand executives and responsible persons from various industries to talk about market segmentation and industrial innovation.
In July this year, Meibo Air Conditioning released a new product, “Micro DC Compressor Wearable Air Conditioner”, which is a product that is very suitable for the current situation. It also officially opened up a new segment for the air conditioning industry. Meibo is also the brand with the most “champion potential” in this field. Therefore, Gearbest also specially invited Yao Jinchi, executive vice president of Meibo Special Air Conditioning Company, for an exclusive interview to talk about the future of the air conditioning industry in his eyes.
Yao Jinchi, Executive Vice President of Meibo Special Air Conditioning Company
Perhaps everyone is not particularly familiar with the Meibo brand, so at the beginning of the interview, we also asked about the industries that Meibo currently covers. We can see on the official website that Meibo Group was founded in 2010 and is a national high-tech enterprise in the refrigeration equipment industry with production, research and sales capabilities. It currently owns its own brands such as Meibo, Lejing, and Meibang. Yao Jinchi also said, “At present, our main business is still air-conditioning related products, covering both the B-end and the C-end. At the same time, we have tried to launch products such as water heaters and water purifiers, but we have not yet rolled out and promoted them on a large scale. The focus is still on the air-conditioning business.”
Find new tracks and create incremental markets
Just as Yao Jinchi said, Meibo is a latecomer in the industry, and the reason why it has received widespread attention during this period is due to the “micro DC compressor wearable air conditioner” mentioned earlier. When talking about why he thought of developing such products, Yao Jinchi said that the entire air conditioning industry is relatively mature, and it is not easy for Meibo to surpass it, so Meibo has also carried out differentiated positioning in the industry, and while its business continues to grow, it is also looking for some new areas for incremental development.
At the same time, Yao Jinchi also said that the wearable air conditioner project was officially launched four or five years ago. The main purpose was to make its own product matrix more diversified, but he did not expect that the product would be on many hot searches after its release, which was an unexpected surprise.
Yao Jinchi also bluntly stated that wearable air conditioners are not a new category in a sense. For example, space suits themselves have the ability to regulate temperature. Later, similar technologies gradually began to be used in the military field. Because they are technologies used for special groups of people, they all have a common problem, which is that they are very bulky, weighing at least ten pounds, which is not suitable for ordinary people.
Meibo's research and development of wearable air conditioners is mainly focused on lightweight and performance. In July, it completed the world's first civilian wearable air conditioner, and the module weight has been controlled at more than 5 kilograms. In terms of application scenarios, many practitioners on the B-side need to work in high-temperature environments, not just outdoor work, such as steel smelting, glass crystal production, plastic injection molding, and paint workshops, which all require long hours of work in high-temperature environments. Especially in the context of global warming, many fields will face extremely hot and cold environments. In this context, Yao Jinchi and Meibo both believe that wearable air conditioners will have a very large market space and potential, which is also an incremental market that Meibo has created for itself.
Of course, what we have discussed above are all B-end markets. Meibo has actually been preparing wearable air conditioners for the C-end market, which will be significantly different from B-end products. Users in the C-end market are more concerned about the comfort and fashion of the product. At present, Meibo has received a lot of market feedback, and the C-end products are also in the testing stage, and are expected to meet you in 2023.
Hope to usher in a billion-level market
Back to the topic of incremental market, in fact, Meibo has had a good development momentum in recent years, so why invest in a new project? Yao Jinchi said that Meibo started out with split air conditioners and is now also engaged in commercial air conditioners, etc. In general, Meibo's development is still very healthy, but everyone's development speed is actually the same, which is a relatively long process. If you want to have rapid growth, you still need to use innovative thinking to open up a new track.
When talking about the prospects and market of wearable air conditioners, Yao Jinchi was very confident. He said that in the early research, the number of people working in high-temperature environments for long periods of time reached more than 300 million. With the continued global high temperatures and the current global population exceeding 8 billion, it means that more and more people need to work in high-temperature environments.
Just looking at the B-end market of workwear, the current market of wearable air conditioners can reach at least tens of millions, and after three to five years of development, it can reach at least several billion. Therefore, in the future, under ideal circumstances, the unit price of Meibo's wearable air conditioners will be controlled within the price range that high-temperature workers can afford, and more products will be developed for different industries and different needs, so as to win more market share.
As for traditional air conditioners, Yao Jinchi also gave his own opinion. He believes that traditional air conditioners are currently striving for micro-innovation. For example, they have launched kitchen air conditioners, bathroom air conditioners, pet air conditioners, parking air conditioners, etc. to meet the needs of different market segments, or they have made efforts in energy conservation, so as to continuously launch new products and allow consumers to upgrade old products. This is also the situation facing the current air-conditioning market.
He also pointed out that the essence of air conditioners is still to use compressors for cooling, and without technological innovation, the market may remain relatively stable. This is also the fundamental reason why air conditioners enter the stock market. After all, consumers need more motivation to choose new products. If the difference is not that big, then only some functions that are more inclined to marketing attributes can be created.
Finally, when talking about the company's future development vision, Yao Jinchi said that Meibo is a technology-based company that insists on technological innovation and is based on user needs. In the future, more new products will be launched. Wearable air conditioners will also be Meibo's core product in the next five years, and more extensions and innovations will be made in technology to create a larger market.
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