China's increasingly innovative household appliance market booms in H1 2021

In the first half of 2021, China's retail sales for household appliances exceeded 25 billion yuan (about $3.87 billion). Among them, sales of cleaning appliances amounted to 13.6 billion yuan, an increase of 40.2 percent year-on-year.

Photo shows a worker on the production line for intelligent rice cookers in the Shuicheng Economic Development Zone, southwest China's Guizhou province. (Deng Gang/People's Daily)

"In the past, cleaning was a tedious and laborious job. Now, thanks to floor washing machines, mopping the floor can be simple and easy. After cleaning work is done, the machines themselves could be automatically cleaned with one button," explained a woman surnamed Yin from Haidian district in Beijing.

Such a brand-new facilitation experience is being enabled with the adoption of smart technologies. According to Leng Ling, CEO of Tineco, a Chinese brand in smart electrical appliances, the biggest innovation in smart floor washing machines lies in its built-in AI chips, which can intelligently sense the level of cleanliness of a ground surface, so as to automatically adjust the machine’s cleaning intensity and cater to users' demands.

In the first half of this year, sales revenues for Tineco soared by 817 percent compared with the same period last year. Over 140,000 units of its intelligent floor washing machines were sold during China's mid-year e-commerce shopping festival known as 618 (June 18) alone.

China's household appliances have sped up the process of fully applying intelligent technology – ranging from smart door locks and floor-sweeping robots to intelligent rice cookers – so that they can be operated only through the use of mobile phone APPs.

"Intelligent technology not only accelerates the upgrading of household appliances, but also helps construct a home appliance ecosystem," introduced Chen Bo, deputy general manager with Xiaomi Group, a major manufacturer of consumer electronics in China. The establishment of an intelligent ecology has become a new driving force to accelerate the development of the household appliances industry, Chen added.

"Generally speaking, market segmentation of household appliances is ushering in explosive growth, and the products are becoming more diversified," said Dai Xiaoxia, deputy director of the CCID research institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Dai believed that against the backdrop of diversified consumer demands and a rapidly growing number of younger consumers, the new products released in the industry need to become more intelligent and personalized.

"In the past, we only sold what was already manufactured. Now, we can reverse-customize household appliances according to consumers' demands," an executive with the China Household Electrical Appliance Association said, adding that the customization of users' demands will be of greater value to the continued development of the household appliance industry.