China Haier achieves results in strategic transformation of targeting high-end customers in Europe

BEIJING,Sept. 3,2018 -- Chinese home appliance giant Haier,taking the first position in the world's household appliance industry,may change the dominance of the Germany-made products in the industry,according to Die Welt,a German national daily newspaper.

"The Chinese want to end the Germans' love for the Miller washing machine," said the report.

At the opening ceremony of the IFA Berlin on August 31,Haier showed the ecological scenarios of Haier Smart Home for the first time in Europe and displayed the complete solutions of smart life for the four physical space and the whole house.

It is the first time that a home appliance enterprise has showed the ecological scenarios at the world exhibition,which has attracted the attention of local media,distributors and users in Europe.

According to Handelsblatt,a leading German-language business newspaper,"no brand and cheap price. This used to be features of the Chinese goods. However,it has become a thing of the past. Today,designing and building brands have become the primary goal of many Chinese companies."

Today,Europe has become the next important market for Haier to build a high-end brand.

"We will invest 1 billion in Europe for marketing in the next four years," said Yannick Fierling,CEO of Haier Europe,adding that it means that this is ten times Haier's investment in Europe in the past four years.

Earlier,in 2016,Saturn,Germany's largest high-end home appliance sales channel,introduced Haier's two-drum washing machines through bidding and gave the best places of its 100 stores to the product.

It is worth noting that the price of the world's pioneering new product is about 20 percent higher than the most high-end product in the local market.

At present,Haier has entered high-end sales channels such as Darty,Currys,MSH,ECI,Unieuro,Expert,AO.COM and M-Video.

According to data of the GFK,a German market research institute,the home appliance markets in some European countries continued to be sluggish in the first half of the year.

To be specific,Italy saw sales of the home appliance products fall 4.3 percent in the first four months and Germany had a negative growth of 3.2 percent in the first half of the year.

As the third largest consumer market in Europe,Russia saw the sales of the home appliance products grow only 6 percent this year.

Against the background,Haier bucked the trend in the first seven months of the year and achieved a positive growth of 30 percent in Europe.

According to the French media LSA,it is technology that allows Haier to reach the top of the industry,said Aurelien Jouin who acts as general manager of Haier France for one year.

It is reported that Haier has built a 10 + N R&D system featuring ten R&D centers with N R&D resources all over the world,which helps Haier create the world's leading high-end products and high-end technologies.

In this regard,Yannick Fierling said that Haier will develop a strategy focusing on advanced technologies,based on regional and product expansion,and target the brand building in Europe.

"We want to be a leader in the field of high-quality products," Fierling said.

In order to raise its market share in Europe to a new level,Haier intends to continue to look for potential acquisition targets in Europe,in addition to multiplying marketing investment and corporate procurement. For Haier,the major breakthrough in the North American market is its acquisition of GE's home appliance business for 5.6 billion U.S. dollars.

According to Qingdao Haier's financial report,Haier achieved a growth of 11 percent in the US market in the first half of the year.

Why is the price of Haier's products in Germany surpassing the local high-end products? Some commentators believe that this is essentially a transcendence of industrial development logic and industrial development concept,and not just the transcendence in the products.