Since the beginning of summer this year, the world has entered a heatwave mode. Saudi pilgrims have died of heat for more than 1,000 people, and India has reported more than 10,000 cases of heat stroke some time ago, killing more than 200 people from heat.
India is a developing country and it is understandable that it cannot afford air conditioning, but even developed countries do not seem to be able to bear it.
At present, there are constantly news of tourists being killed by heat in Europe, and many countries have issued urgent reminders, asking people to pay attention to heat prevention, and even suggesting that bed sheets be put in the refrigerator before being laid out to cool down.
Why is Europe so nervous? Because Europe has learned a lesson, more than 60,000 people died of fever in Europe in 2022.
To be honest, for the death of so many people in Europe, the Chinese are generally incomprehensible, and it is hot to turn on the air conditioner.
Actually, it's not that Europeans don't want to turn on the air conditioner, it's really not!
In fact, less than 5% of French and British households are air-conditioned, and in Germany the figure is only 3%, which is about the same as in India.
▲The German guy explains why Germans rarely install air conditioners, what to do when it's too hot in summer (screenshot from station B UP "Mark CN")
Even France, which is about to host the Olympic Games, has announced that the Olympic Village will not be equipped with air conditioning, and will only use ground temperature to cool down, although the official statement is "to create a more environmentally friendly sports event", but to put it bluntly, this is actually the same as the paper bed used in the Japanese Olympics. After all, air conditioners in Europe are 2-3 times more expensive than in China.
However, after all, this world is material, and will not be transferred by spiritual power, and it is estimated that when the Olympic Games begin, the temperature of more than 40 degrees will completely shatter the "superiority" of the French as a developed country.
▲ European gentlemen ignore gentlemen and heat up at the water mist sprinklers on the streets
So the question is, with the same scorching heat, why does the air conditioner, which even the French can't afford to install, become an ordinary consumer product that benefits the whole people in China? This starts with the history of the rise of air conditioning in China.
Let's talk about cold knowledge first, the birth of air conditioning at the beginning was not actually to improve the comfort of life, but to dehumidify the printing plant.
At the beginning of the 20th century, American industry developed rapidly, soon surpassing Europe. But at the same time, the Americans have encountered the problem of high temperatures in summer, and for the capitalists, it is possible for them to endure the workers, but the machines are not! Especially in printing shops, high temperatures can cause printing presses to run abnormally.
In order to cool down the factory, the printing plant had to put ice cubes indoors to cool down, but the machine was normal, but the high humidity would make the paper damp, and the ink would quickly smudge.
In 1902, the printing house found the Buffalo Forge Company, can you think of a way! Willis Carrier, an engineer at the Buffalo Forging Company, went to inspect the printing shop and came up with a plan.
Isn't it okay to put the previously refrigerated ice into coils and blow it with a fan? Because the coil is sealed, there is no evaporation to produce water vapor. At the same time, in order to continuously cool the water in the coil, a refrigerant refrigeration device is also set up outside, so that the heat from the interior can be continuously exchanged to the outside.
In this way, the first modern air conditioner was born.
Carrier quickly discovered the value of its own invention of air conditioning, and if machines could be cool, why couldn't they?
So, Carrier simply founded an air conditioning company and started selling air conditioners to different customers.
To be honest, Carrier's air conditioning company caught up with the good time, when the "sunshine belt" (the southern region of the United States, the sun shines a lot) developed rapidly, but the high temperature of the sunzone discouraged many people, and the birth of air conditioning perfectly solved this problem, a large number of factories and people moved from the north of the United States to the southern sunshine belt, making the southern United States rise rapidly.
Air conditioning systems are widely used in factories, banks, hotels, department stores, office buildings, skyscrapers, trains, airplanes, and ships in the southern United States. The birth of air conditioning not only directly changed the living environment of Americans, but also directly increased the working hours of Americans, and to a certain extent, accelerated the rise of the United States.
After the success of the United States, Carrier's air conditioners began to be exported to the world, and China was no exception.
In 1924, the first air conditioner with ammonia vertical 2-cylinder and 4-cylinder piston chillers was installed in the Kadoorie Marble Building in the Shanghai Concession, which was also the first air conditioner ever appeared on the land of China. Then in 1936, Nanjing's Xindu Theater also introduced a high-power central air conditioner, you only need to buy a ticket, you can enjoy the cool air, which is also the beginning of many ordinary Chinese contact with air conditioning.
However, at that time, China was poor and white, and even matches and iron nails had to be named foreign fire and foreign nails, so naturally it was impossible to produce air conditioners by itself.
It wasn't until 1954 that China built its first air conditioner. In 1965, Shanghai Refrigerator Factory successfully developed China's first three-phase power window air conditioner.
However, these air conditioners are basically special supplies, mainly to meet the special cooling requirements of some equipment of the two bombs and one star, and they are basically hand rubbed, so they do not have the ability to mass production, and they have no ability to popularize to thousands of households.
The mass production of air conditioners began in 1974.
In 1974, Taizhou Radio Component No. 9 Factory suddenly received an air-conditioning task. The factory director is very confused, our factory makes radios, not air conditioners! The above is very affirmative, the task for you is to find a way to produce air conditioners!
I have to say that the state-owned factory at that time was really an all-rounder, and the air conditioning technology at that time was not too difficult. This is China's first mass-produced air conditioner: CKF-3A.
Unexpectedly, as soon as the CKF-3A was launched, it was generally welcomed, after all, next to the big customer Shanghai at that time, the demand was just right, and the output value of the factory increased several times at once.
So the director pondered, or, our factory will switch to air conditioning?
As a result, Taizhou Radio Component No. 9 Factory officially changed its name to Taizhou Air Conditioning Factory, and began to play tickets as its main business.
I'm afraid many people have never heard of Taizhou Air Conditioning Plant, but it has a well-known name in the future: Chunlan.
The success of Taizhou air-conditioning plant has been seen by many people, only two years later, a street cadre named He Xiangjian in Beijiao Street, Shunde County, Foshan City, looked at a small workshop called "Beijiao Street Plastic Production Group", and also started to think, or, let's also learn to make air conditioners?
Soon, Midea Home Appliances Company was born.
Almost at the same time as the registration in the United States, two major events took place.
First, also in Shunde County, Foshan, a small workshop that mainly produces telephone parts and components has set its sights on the emerging industry of air conditioning, so a company called Huabao was also established.
▲Huabao air conditioner
Second, in Qingdao, Shandong, Zhang Ruimin took the lead in smashing 76 unqualified Haier refrigerators, which completely changed the fate of this unknown small factory.
So far, the four kings of air conditioning in China in the eighties and nineties: Chunlan, Huabao, Midea, and Haier, have stepped onto the stage of history.
However, as soon as China's air conditioners took a step, they faced tough competition.
At the beginning of the reform and opening up, Sino-Japanese relations eased, and after a game between the two sides, the Japanese launched an ODA aid project for China, totaling 3.65 trillion yen.
In addition to using this money for infrastructure such as railways and ports, there is also a clause that China must use to buy Japanese products, and it is for this reason that Japanese home appliances have begun to enter China in a big way.
Throughout the 80s, Hitachi, Sanyo, Toshiba and Panasonic became the ace products that Chinese thought of.
In this way, when Chinese buy air conditioners, they will give preference to Japanese brands to buy. So what about air conditioners in China? We can only operate differentially and take the low-end route. In fact, air conditioning is the most suitable for low-end.
Air conditioning has been born for decades, and the principle of heat exchange is not a secret, the main components, that is, compressors, condensers, evaporators, etc., except for compressors, there is no technical content at all, whether you buy Japanese brands or Chinese brands, no matter what the difference is in appearance, in the end, blowing out, isn't it cold air?
Therefore, compared with televisions, refrigerators, and automobiles, the air-conditioning industry was more suitable to take advantage of China's low labor costs at that time.
At the same time, China's economy began to develop rapidly, the living standards of residents improved rapidly, and the demand for air conditioning began to skyrocket.
Due to strong domestic demand, a large number of foreign-funded enterprises have set up factories in China in the form of joint ventures, in 1995, Sino-foreign joint venture air-conditioning enterprises amounted to 25, such as Sharp, Shenyang Sanyo, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Panasonic, Daikin, Fujitsu, etc., to 1996, foreign air conditioning won 70% of the market share in one fell swoop.
At the same time, seeing the broad prospects of the air conditioning market, many Chinese enterprises have also introduced production lines, crossed into the air conditioning industry, and even a small factory, find a few workers to weld with copper pipes, and then install a compressor, you can build an air conditioner.
By the end of the 90s, there were more than 400 manufacturers of air conditioners in the country, including Galanz, Gree, Oaks, TCL and other rising stars, and China's air conditioning production soared from 200,000 units at the end of the 80s to 10 million units.
Although China's air conditioning production has come up, foreign brand air conditioners still occupy half of China's air conditioning market, and there are more than a dozen foreign brands, which have carved up nearly 50% of the market, and what about domestic air conditioners? More than 400 will grab the remaining 50% of the share.
In the case of insufficient market, air conditioning companies will definitely be killed.
As a result, China's air-conditioning companies have been brewing for a long time, launched the "three major battles", and finally completely occupied the market, and even began to counterattack overseas.
The first battle is a price war.
As mentioned earlier, air conditioning is not so mysterious, and its function is mainly to blow cold air, which leads to serious homogenization of air conditioning, and the difference in the core components of air conditioning is difficult for consumers to feel.
This gives China's air conditioners the confidence to fight a price war.
In September 2000, Galanz, the price butcher, entered the air-conditioning industry and announced that the cabinet unit had dropped by 1,000 yuan. To be honest, Japanese companies are dismissive of this kind of "untechnical" price reduction.
However, Japanese companies have forgotten that in 2000, when the average monthly salary was less than 1,000, how tempting was a price reduction of 1,000 yuan?
Immediately afterwards, Oaks air conditioner also proposed, "Exemption from inspection is a father's affordable mother", and more than 40 Oaks air conditioners on the market dropped by 30%. What's not to mention martial arts is that Oaks actually released a "White Paper on the Cost of Air Conditioning".
How "white" is this white paper?
White to directly list the cost secrets of air conditioning one by one, Oaks a 1.5 hp heating and cooling air conditioner, the production cost is 1378 yuan, the sales cost is 370 yuan, the merchant profit is 80 yuan, and the manufacturer's profit is 52 yuan.
Oaks pointed out that the average price of air conditioners of the same grade on the market is basically more than 2,500 yuan, and he only sells it for 1,880 yuan.
This is too "not about martial arts", you know, at that time, the air conditioner was actually still a "high-tech product" name, so a dismantling, consumers completely "disenchanted" the air conditioner.
So under such a cost transparency offensive, whoever sells more expensively will be questioned more.
Even if the Japanese air conditioner desperately shouts don't listen to his nonsense, I am quieter, I am more environmentally friendly, but for Chinese consumers who only need to blow the air conditioner, all explanations are too pale.
Subsequently, Changhong, Huagao, Gree, Midea, Haier and other companies also joined the price war, relying on the good reputation and price advantage accumulated in the early stage, to encircle and suppress foreign brands.
From 2001 to 2004, the average price of domestic air conditioning shipments in China dropped sharply from 2,835 yuan to 1,600 yuan, especially the initiator of the price war, Oaks, successfully squeezed into the top five positions in the industry with the price.
In contrast, Japanese air conditioners have not been able to adjust their market strategies in time, and their market share has fallen below 20%.
Of course, in the price war, it is not only Japanese brands that are hurt, but also traditional first-line manufacturers such as Chunlan and Huabao, which were popular in the 90s, have begun to fall behind because of business strategy problems, and there are many small brands that have not survived, gone bankrupt or been acquired.
After the price war, China's air conditioning market has been further centralized, realizing the survival of the fittest in the industry.
The second battle is the channel war
As we all know, in the early 2000s, China's level of urbanization was still relatively low, and there was a lack of retail platforms and logistics systems covering the whole country.
Therefore, the sales model at that time mainly relied on major supermarkets, which were state-owned department stores and supply and marketing cooperatives at first, and later became Gome, Dazhong, Suning and other electrical appliance stores, providing installation, after-sales and other services.
To be honest, although the store has helped the air-conditioning company solve the sales problem, there are also contradictions between the air-conditioning company and these stores.
For example, some large-scale electrical appliance stores, with customer flow, can arbitrarily manipulate air-conditioning companies, lower supply prices, charge "booth fees", and even postpone payment for goods.
In fact, these air conditioning companies can tolerate it, but some things are really unbearable.
In 2004, in order to seize the market, Gome Electric began to unilaterally and significantly reduce the price of Gree air conditioners, such as 1680 yuan for 1 horse, directly reduced to 1000 yuan.
▲In 2003, the heads of two air-conditioning companies, young Dong Mingzhu and Li Dongsheng
In this way, it seriously violates the interests of Gree, you do this, and the agents from other places have gone to you to buy the goods, how can I sell my air conditioner?
Gree asked Gome to restore the original price and apologize, but Gome insisted on not apologizing, and finally the two talks collapsed, and Gree withdrew from Gome and began to build its own sales channels.
Although the cost of self-built sales channels is higher, the advantage is that the whole process is controllable, they want to expand on the expansion, want to shrink on the contraction, more importantly, their own sales channels because of the small façade, can be more nets, deep into the third and fourth tier cities and the vast number of rural areas, towns, it is very convenient to expand the market, after all, it does not cost much to open a small door that sells air conditioners.
▲The propaganda slogan of "good air conditioning, made by Gree" has made many people remember it deeply
On the contrary, hypermarkets such as Gome and Suning, if they want to open stores, have the threshold of customer flow and consumption capacity, resulting in their inability to penetrate into grassroots counties and cities, and their coverage is limited.
In 2008, China introduced a four-trillion economic stimulus plan, and the real estate industry boomed, driving the explosion of air conditioning installations. In 2009, air conditioning entered the subsidy catalogue for household appliances to go to the countryside, and the air conditioning market in rural and township areas skyrocketed.
At this time, Gree, which has its own channels in grassroots counties and cities, has an absolute advantage and achieved explosive growth, and in 2012, the sales of Gree electrical appliances exceeded 100 billion, and Gree officially established its leading position in the industry.
Seeing that Gree is so successful, other domestic first-line brands have also begun to build their own channels, and other people who have no money to build their own channels have also begun to move online, using online flat marketing, saving a lot of sales companies, warehousing, rent, agents and store costs, but also breaking out of the world.
And what about Japanese brands? Self-built channels can't be built, and they can't sell in stores and can't reduce prices at will, so they can't bear it and slowly withdraw from the Chinese market, while Chinese air conditioners repel Japanese air conditioners in one fell swoop and achieve the final victory.
Today's Japanese air conditioners are relying on a little bit of the central air conditioning market to survive, and the split air conditioning market is basically occupied by domestic air conditioners.
The third battle, the technical war
In the 1990s and even early 2000s, although the output of China's air conditioning industry has grown by leaps and bounds, there has always been a bottleneck in technology: compressors.
The compressor is the core component of the air-conditioning system, which can increase the temperature and pressure of the inhaled low-temperature and low-pressure refrigerant vapor through compression, so that the refrigerant inside can be moved, and the purpose of refrigeration can be achieved through heat power conversion.
It is not difficult to produce compressors, but the challenge lies in how to achieve the best balance of high energy efficiency, low noise, easy maintenance and cost-effectiveness while ensuring product performance, quality and environmental protection.
For as long as 20 years, in fact, Chinese air-conditioning companies have basically relied on Japanese compressors. I worked hard to sell an air conditioner, but the profit was not as much as that of selling compressors in Japan.
Therefore, the compressor has become an industrial pearl that China must overcome.
In 1998, Midea acquired Toshiba Wanjiale Compressor and Motor Company and officially entered the compressor field.
In 2004, Gree acquired 70% of the shares of Zhuhai Lingda Compressor Company, and in 2009, it entered a joint venture with Daikin of Japan to produce compressors.
At present, Midea's air-conditioning compressors have all been popularized as its own brand Meizhi, while Gree's compressors are its own Lingda brand, and other air-conditioning companies have also generally begun to use domestic compressors.
In this way, the most core components of air conditioning have also been replaced by domestic ones. By choosing domestic compressors, air conditioning manufacturers can not only control production costs, but also have greater room for price reduction.
In addition, in recent years, the popular intelligent tide in the field of Chinese home appliances has also begun to spread to the field of air conditioning.
To be honest, air conditioning has been born for more than 100 years, but there is basically no much technological progress, and after China's air conditioning began to popularize intelligence, this market has been completely subverted! Countless foreign-funded air conditioning manufacturers were dumbfounded: can you still play like this?
For example, the smart air conditioner produced in China is equipped with Internet of Things technology, which can be remotely controlled through smart phones, tablets and other devices to intelligently perceive the home environment, automatically adjust the working status and temperature of the air conditioner, and bring users a more convenient and comfortable life.
Imagine how pleasant it would be to come home from work and the air conditioner would be automatically turned on, making you feel cool as soon as you get home.
In addition, smart air conditioners can optimize operational efficiency and minimize energy consumption through intelligent algorithms. It can also automatically filter bacteria, viruses and other harmful substances in the air according to the indoor air conditions to improve home air quality.
Look at the old-fashioned window air conditioners all over Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, China, this kind of air conditioner in China has passed, is it a dimensionality reduction blow?
The numbers speak for themselves, and in 2023, China will produce 244.87 million air conditioners, accounting for more than 80% of the world's air conditioning production. More than 50% of the overseas air conditioning market outside of China is from China.
Is the counterattack of China's air conditioner a victory for the low-price strategy? In a sense, yes.
However, it has another meaning: equality in science and technology.
We have noticed a phenomenon that foreign industrial products, no matter what, are very expensive.
We all know that industrial products have a scale effect, and if the scale goes up, the price will come down, and more people will be able to afford it.
So why don't they scale up and lower their prices?
Because there are few people in developed countries, they can live well by building a pillar industry and maintaining a high profit margin. If production is expanded, profit margins fall, and you may not earn much.
From the perspective of business strategy, there is nothing wrong with thinking about it, but it is unfair to the majority of users.
Aren't the children of the Gaza Strip entitled to use computers? Aren't African children qualified to blow air conditioners? Aren't children in Southeast Asia eligible to use mobile phones to access the Internet?
The ideal of the Chinese is to continuously expand the scale of production, reduce costs, and no matter what industrial crown pearl, we must reduce the price of cabbage, and then manufacture industrial products that ordinary people all over the world can afford to meet their needs for a better life.
This is equal rights in science and technology, science and technology should not be high, but should serve the people.
The current Chinese air conditioner is taking this route.
The goal of China's air conditioning has never been to drive foreign brand air conditioners out of China, nor is it to occupy the world market, the real goal of China's air conditioning is to let people all over the world use cheap air conditioners, in the hot summer, enjoy the comfort brought by science and technology.
This is the final pattern of China's air conditioning, and even China's manufacturing industry, which is also what those countries that hype "China's overcapacity theory" will never understand.