Huge inventory of energy-saving new policies to create a new pattern of air-conditioning industry

With the implementation of the Air Conditioning Energy Savings Subsidy Implementation Rules and the Subsidy Product List, the industry has initiated discussions on the future market pattern of the air-conditioning industry. Public opinion believes that with the new energy-saving subsidies, the huge inventory of high energy-consuming products will make the industry inventory oligops New development burden.

In the current global household appliance market downturn, the current air-conditioning companies are faced with strategic problems such as repeated fluctuations in raw material prices and high operating costs. Once the domestic domestic market fails to digest high-energy-consumption air-conditioning products, these inventory oligarchs will suffer. This will be a turning point in reshaping the air-conditioning industry.

For a long time, most of China’s air-conditioning companies have been in a backward “factory operation” model, that is, “products are produced in off-season, and sales are in peak season”, so the air-conditioning industry has a huge inventory to be digested each year. This has led to the recent years China's air-conditioning industry has always been a high-risk operation. Along with the increase in market size, the risk coefficient of the entire industry has also been rising. In particular, under the turbulent global economic situation and relatively low market demand, this risk factor will soar, and the bleak opening of the air-conditioning industry in the cold year of 2012 proves this point. On the one hand, the global air-conditioning market demand has continued to shrink. The continued spread of debt crisis in Europe and the United States has drastically lowered the air-conditioning consumption demand in the global market. In the domestic market, the key support point for the increase in the air-conditioning market is the downturn in the real estate market, and rigid demand is relatively suppressed. On the other hand, the fluctuation of the global economic situation has caused the major settlement currency of international trade dollar to fall into a situation of excess liquidity, which has drastically pushed up the prices of global commodities. The cost-control capacity of air-conditioning companies has further weakened, and the market demand for continuous decline has continued. The high operating costs constitute the new situation faced by the air conditioning industry in the cold year 2012.

High inventory is the biggest risk for companies, and there are three main risks to the air-conditioning industry. One is the devaluation of technology. Once a new technology emerges, the depreciation of the technology in inventory products will occur because the technology update rate of air-conditioning products is too fast. Second, the price fluctuation of raw materials will directly cause the cost of inventory and new products to be misaligned, especially at present. The price of raw materials determines the price of money is extremely unstable; Third, the increase in the cost of holdings, monetary tightening caused a substantial increase in capital costs, the increase in the use of some local funds costs more than the increase in raw material prices. Any of these three factors will bring direct losses to inventory holders.

Under the dominance of the selling inventory model, the current air-conditioning industry inventories are highly energy-consuming products to a large extent, which obviously contradicts the original intention of the state to launch an energy-saving subsidy policy to dominate the energy-saving transformation of the air-conditioning industry. In this sense, the desire of the air conditioning stock oligarchs to rely on stimulus policies to get rid of burdens fell. However, what is more severe is that under the stimulus of the national energy-saving subsidies policy, the market's total demand for high-energy-consuming air-conditioners will drop significantly. Once this happens, a large number of high energy-consuming products in the industry will cause companies to fall into a huge cost crisis due to lack of release of the market.

In contrast, companies with relatively small inventories and leading models can respond more flexibly to national policies and take the lead in energy-saving transformation of the industry. From the list of subsidized products, industry-leading enterprises led by energy-efficient products have become the backbone of energy-saving product promotion. With the continuous improvement of R&D capabilities and leading global business models, industry leaders represented by Haier are driving new changes in the air-conditioning industry under the guidance of national stimulus policies.

On the one hand, the National Energy Conservation Subsidy New Deal will speed up the adjustment of the product structure of the air-conditioning market, and the oligopolistic air-conditioner inventory will be plunged into unprecedented market pressure. Leading companies represented by Haier, for example, will be able to rapidly switch products and become the new leaders in market development; On the other hand, the introduction of the National New Deal will accelerate the deployment of air-conditioning energy-saving technology research and development. As an industry leader, Haier has already deployed a technology research and development center in Japan, which will greatly accelerate the technological R&D of China's air-conditioning industry.

Uncertainty in the global market strongly requires air-conditioning companies to enhance liquidity through model innovation, change the previous operating model that only focuses on production and inventory, and instead focus on market changes and consumer demand, and truly achieve consumer demand-driven corporate operations, organized according to market demand. Production, out of production inventory and then organize the sales of backward mode, create a core competitiveness that can effectively resist external risks. From this point of view, the introduction of the new energy-saving policy is likely to become a major turning point in the development of the air-conditioning industry, leading companies in the model, strong technical strength will quickly replace the air conditioning inventory oligopoly to become the market leader.