Home central air conditioning is a tough nut to crack

From the perspective of home air conditioner manufacturers, the home central air conditioner market looks promising, but it is difficult to operate. Although everyone knows that home central air conditioners have great business opportunities in the future, they have not yet found a way to ignite it.

Is it cheese or chicken ribs? In the past year or so, manufacturers and merchants have different views on the market prospects of household central air conditioners, and even sparked controversy. Some manufacturers believe that this is a new cheese and a new cake, which will have great potential in the future; others believe that this is essentially a chicken rib, which is a pity to throw away but tasteless to eat.

In fact, since last year, there has been a round of layout and integration around home central air conditioners in the Chinese market. Among them, the most representative are Haier, Midea, Gree, Aux and other companies, all of which are promoting "home-business integration", taking home central air conditioners, including unit units, duct units, multi-split units and other products, from the original commercial air conditioning system, integrating them with home air conditioners, and rapidly promoting and detonating the market scale of home central air conditioners to social mass channels, including chain stores and e-commerce.

Currently, a large number of air-conditioning companies are actively promoting the "integration of home and business", especially focusing on household central air-conditioning. On the one hand, the slowdown in the growth of the traditional household air-conditioning market is an indisputable fact, and new support must be found; on the other hand, with the improvement of China's residential structure, ordinary families have begun to demand household central air-conditioning, and it has exceeded the expectations of some air-conditioning manufacturers.

However, in my opinion, although the current air-conditioning manufacturers are enthusiastic and determined to promote home central air-conditioning, through the personal experience of many home air-conditioning dealers in the home central air-conditioning market and categories in recent years, this is still a "tough nut to crack". The core reason is that the product technology threshold and sales service threshold in this field are high, and the brand awareness of users is also high. As a result, the explosive growth rate of this market in the short term "seems fast and fierce", but in fact many manufacturers are facing the embarrassment of "lack of stamina".

First, in the home central air conditioning market, users have a high degree of brand awareness and are relatively concentrated. Currently in this field, the brands that users are more familiar with are mainly Daikin, Hisense Hitachi and other few brands. Even Gree, Midea and Haier, which dominate the home air conditioning market, have a low degree of awareness in the home central air conditioning market. Moreover, after years of development, there has been no major progress and breakthrough. Behind the high brand awareness is the construction of brand trust relationship.

Secondly, the high entry threshold of product technology has led to a large number of commercial speculators in the market being disappointed. In the context of high brand awareness, it is precisely because many companies have low technical stability in household central air-conditioning products that they have not formed professional brand awareness. Compared with household air conditioners, household central air conditioners involve one-to-many, with higher technical complexity and stricter product stability assurance capabilities. Although many companies have long begun to study Daikin's one-to-many technology, few companies can currently surpass it in all aspects. Similarly, even Daikin has some product problems and failures.

Furthermore, the marketing service system has high requirements for capabilities, which makes it impossible to copy, share and connect the experience and models of many household air conditioning systems. Although many air conditioning manufacturers and merchants have been transforming from household air conditioning to household central air conditioning in recent years, they are constrained by the integrated marketing service model of household central air conditioning, which has high requirements for product design, installation, and service capabilities. The existing marketing service capabilities of public channels such as e-commerce and chain stores cannot meet these requirements. Even if JD.com and Suning want to participate, their own capabilities still need to be rebuilt.

In addition, compared with the scale of household air conditioners, which is over 100 billion yuan, and the high temperature weather in recent years, the household air conditioner market continues to grow. However, the scale of the household central air conditioner market is about 10 billion yuan. Although there is a broad space for growth, it takes time to cultivate and improve. In the past few years, manufacturers and merchants who switched from household air conditioners to household central air conditioners have also experienced periodic fatigue and repetition. As a result, market operations and product promotions have shown periodic repetition and tossing, and they have not persisted.

Apart from the above factors, we should also clearly see that compared with the scale, capacity and system of the household air-conditioning market, the household central air-conditioning market is unlikely to be fully scaled up in the short term, and it is even more necessary to build a differentiated marketing service system. Short-term speculation is basically impossible, and solid product and technology innovation, as well as marketing service investment, must be made step by step!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.