Watermelons, air conditioners, and WiFi are dubbed by netizens as the three "life-sustaining artifacts" in summer.
Since the beginning of this year, the heat wave has swept across many parts of the country, and the importance of the "artifact" of air conditioning has become more prominent.
Under the blessing of hot weather, the domestic air-conditioning market has ushered in a peak sales season.
Since the beginning of this year, my country has experienced large-scale high-temperature weather, with the highest temperature in many areas exceeding 40°C, breaking the historical record.
At 6:00 on August 21, the Central Meteorological Observatory continued to issue a high temperature red warning. This was the 10th consecutive day that the Central Meteorological Observatory issued a high temperature red warning.
The recent monitoring and evaluation of the National Climate Center shows that, considering the average intensity, impact range and duration of high temperature and heat wave events, the comprehensive intensity of regional high temperature events since June 13 this year has reached the strongest since complete meteorological observation records began in 1961. .
In addition to weather reasons, policy support is also the reason for the increase in sales of home appliances such as air conditioners.
At the end of July, 13 departments including the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the "Notice on Several Measures to Promote the Consumption of Green Smart Home Appliances".
It is mentioned in the document that a nationwide trade-in campaign for household appliances will be carried out to comprehensively promote the consumption of smart refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, ultra-high-definition TVs, mobile phones, smart kitchen and bathroom, smart security, smart office, smart health care and other green smart household appliances, and promote green smart household appliances to the countryside. .
The sales scale of air conditioners has increased significantly
According to data from the Jingdong platform, since June, with the increase in high temperature weather, the sales of Jingdong home appliance air conditioners have increased by more than 400% month-on-month.
The top five regions for Jingdong air conditioner sales are Guangdong, Shandong, Sichuan, Henan, and Jiangsu, which are also well-known provinces with frequent high temperatures.
Securities Times reporters visited many large home appliance stores in Shenzhen and found that customers stop by air-conditioning stores from time to time to inquire and choose air-conditioning products.
A staff member said that there have been rare high-temperature weather in many places this year. Air conditioners were sold out of stock in some areas in Sichuan. Local customers had to wait a week for the merchants to deliver the air conditioners. Therefore, they had cross-province to inquire about the purchase of air conditioners. matter.
In fact, not only Sichuan and other well-known provinces with frequent high temperatures, but even Guizhou, which is known for its coolness, has experienced a significant increase in air-conditioning sales under the continuous high temperature in some areas this year, and it was once out of stock.
In early August, an air conditioner salesman in a shopping mall in Bijie, Guizhou told reporters: "If you buy an air conditioner now, it will take about a month to install it."
In addition to high temperature, policy is also another reason.
Another staff member in Shenzhen told reporters that Shenzhen implemented policy subsidies in June this year, and the market was once relatively hot. Basically, it was too busy to stop all day, and even said that "one day's sales volume is equivalent to the usual one month's volume."
It is understood that during the period from May to August in Shenzhen, consumers will be subsidized by 15% of the sales price for eligible TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, kitchen appliances, small household appliances and other household appliances. 2000 dollars.
Since the beginning of this year, Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, Shaanxi and other provinces and cities have successively issued relevant policies to stimulate the consumption of household appliances. The government has allocated tens of millions to hundreds of millions of yuan to support consumers in purchasing green appliances with first-class efficiency. The main categories are concentrated. For air conditioners, refrigerators, and kitchen appliances.
Some air-conditioning manufacturers also said that air-conditioning sales have increased this year.
Gree Group's board secretary told reporters that from the perspective of third-party data, the company's sales have performed well in the past two or three months.
According to data from Aowei Cloud.com, the online sales of Gree air conditioners increased by 9% in the third quarter of this year as of the 31st week.
In addition, online sales of Haier air conditioners rose by 41%, and Midea air conditioners rose by 29%.
It can be seen that online sales are still the main engine driving sales growth.
According to a reporter from Securities Times e Company, Changhong Air Conditioning has shown a sharp upward trend since June.
As of mid-July, the annual sales volume of Changhong Air Conditioning in 2022 has increased by 30% year-on-year. At present, this increase is still expanding, and many star products were once sold out of stock.
At present, Changhong's air-conditioning production orders have been fully booked, and it has been working at full capacity to ensure the supply of goods.
According to the data of Aowei Cloud, in the three weeks after "June 18", the sales of air conditioners in the domestic online market reached 81.6%, 80.2% and 14.9% respectively.
In the first week of August, the overall sales volume of the air-conditioning industry increased by 46.9%, and the market share of 12 brands increased year-on-year.
Among them, the proportion of mid-to-high-end products above 4,000 yuan continued to rise.
In the second week of August, the sales of air conditioners increased by 19.45% year-on-year, and the sales volume increased by 15.59% year-on-year.
The downward trend of air conditioning production has narrowed
In addition to the substantial increase in air-conditioning sales, the downward trend in production scheduling is also gradually narrowing.
The annual cold year of air conditioning generally starts from August of the previous year to July of this year.
According to industry practice, the production of air-conditioning enterprises has entered the off-season since the beginning of August, and air-conditioning manufacturers and their upstream and downstream companies usually arrange maintenance leave during this period.
But this year is different, with the constant sweltering heat pushing that back.
Some companies are currently running out of stock, and there will be some temporary increases in new orders.
In order to meet market demand and ensure timely delivery, most air conditioner companies have not arranged vacations for the time being, or have adopted rotating vacations.
For example, according to the summer break schedule disclosed by Industry Online, Haier initially plans to take weekly breaks for its factories in September, but does not rule out making adjustments based on the production situation of orders in August.
According to industry online data, in July this year, the household air conditioner industry scheduled production of about 10.69 million units, a 20.8% decrease from the actual performance in 2021.
Among them, 7 million units are scheduled for domestic sales, a year-on-year decrease of 29%, and 3.69 million units are scheduled for export, a year-on-year decrease of 23.1%, which is the third consecutive month of decline since May.
Affected by the downstream terminal market, upstream compressor companies also showed a cautious attitude in production scheduling. In July, the production of rotary compressors was 16.68 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 12.5%.
Compared with the double-digit decline in production scheduling in July, the downward trend of production scheduling in August has improved significantly.
Air-conditioning companies scheduled production of 10.295 million units in August, down 0.5% from the actual production performance in the same period last year, and down 6.3% from the previous month; the top ten rotor compressor companies scheduled production of 16.33 million units, down 3.5% from the actual production performance in the same period last year, and down 2.1% from the previous month.
A number of listed companies respond to the impact of high temperature
Haier Zhijia, Changhong Meiling, Hisense Home Appliances, ST Tesco and other companies all stated on the interactive platform that high temperature weather has promoted the sales of the company's air conditioners and other related products.
Haier Zhijia said that Haier central air-conditioning has quickly won the recognition of local users in Europe by providing a variety of smart and healthy air scenarios and localized professional services.
According to local statistics, from January to June, Haier central air-conditioning Europe achieved a year-on-year growth of 31.4%, and the export scale continued to maintain high growth.
The board secretary of Gree Group pointed out that the impact of high temperature on the company's performance will not be reflected immediately.
He said that the company's sales statistics are based on the data sold to dealers, not the data sold by dealers to consumers.
Throughout the year, monthly sales will not vary much.
The company produces and ships normally. It will not produce more because consumers buy more, but will average the sales volume to each month.
Overall, hot weather may have a certain impact on the company's sales, but the fluctuations in production and sales will not be too large.
He also said that Gree is undergoing channel reform, and dealers are currently stockpiling more.
Dealer sales have increased, mostly by clearing inventory.
High temperature weather may have a certain positive impact on listed companies, but it will lag a bit and will not be reflected immediately.
Zhongyuan Securities pointed out that with the arrival of the industry's peak sales season, and stimulated by policies such as "promoting consumption", "supporting green home appliances to go to the countryside, and trading old for new", my country's air-conditioning market began to gradually pick up in the second half of the year, especially in the near future. Under the high temperature weather of time, the sales scale increased significantly.
According to the monitoring data of the past two months, the retail sales of air-conditioning online markets across the country have increased by up to 80% in a single week. Among them, Shanghai, which is located in a high-temperature area, has a single-week air-conditioning sales growth of more than 400% year-on-year.
Considering the continuation of the abnormal high temperature weather, it is expected that the sales volume of my country's air-conditioning market may continue to grow in the short term, and the backlogged inventory in the industry is expected to be cleared quickly in the first half of the year.
Bohai Securities believes that the current high temperature in most parts of the country has changed the sales of air conditioners.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been frequent favorable home appliance policies, and the price of upstream raw materials has dropped significantly recently. With the easing of the epidemic, the profitability of enterprises is expected to improve in the second half of the year.
To sum up, Bohai Securities temporarily gives the industry an "optimistic" rating, and it is recommended to pay attention to: Midea Group (000333), Haier Zhijia (600690), Gree Electric (000651), Yitian Intelligence (300911), Martian (300894) and Xinbao Shares (002705).
The Everbright Securities research report shows that the continued weakening of raw material prices is expected to lift the profit center of the sector. At the same time, the prices of major categories of home appliances have risen. The average price increase in the air-conditioning industry from January to June 2022 is roughly 6%.
Looking forward to the second half of the year, the overall cost reduction and product price increase, the profit improvement of the home appliance industry can be expected.