Text/Mantis Finance (ID: TanglangFin)
Author/Tu Lin
In the field of central air conditioning, the volume of domestic brands is getting louder and louder.
According to the market data of central air-conditioning from "Electromechanical Information", from January to September 2020, the "top ten" brands in China's central air-conditioning industry are: Midea, Gree, Daikin, Hitachi, Haier, McQuay, Toshiba, Johnson Controls York, Cool wind, day plus. Among them, not only national brands account for the majority, but also home appliance giants represented by Midea, Gree and Haier have successfully entered the first echelon.
With the introduction of new infrastructure in 2020, the "war" of central air-conditioning brands in the household market has quickly spread to the commercial market. In order to win more orders in the infrastructure field represented by "rail transit", the "open and secret battles" among the major central air-conditioning brands in public opinion have intensified.
The internal competition in the field of commercial central air-conditioning is accelerating.
Under the pressure of declining market demand, rail transit becomes the next "colosseum"?
Compared with household central air conditioners, commercial central air conditioners are significantly different.
Commercial central air conditioners are not only more powerful, but the compressors, control systems, and control pipelines used are much more complicated than the former. Correspondingly, the gross profit level of commercial central air conditioners is relatively high.
Benefiting from the acceleration of urbanization, commercial central air-conditioning developed rapidly in the past few years around 2010. The rapid development of the domestic economy has spawned a batch of large-scale commercial office buildings, hotels, shopping malls, etc., giving great market space for commercial central air conditioners.
Since foreign brands entered central air-conditioning earlier than domestic enterprises, in the early days, the protagonists in the commercial central air-conditioning field were mostly foreign brands such as Carrier, Trane, York, and McQuay. However, in recent years, local enterprises have been catching up gradually, and the pattern is changing year by year.
However, although the national brand is slowly catching up, the market demand for commercial central air conditioners is facing declining pressure. The reason behind this is roughly from two aspects.
On the one hand, the completion and start of commercial real estate are in a sluggish situation, and inventories have reached high levels. According to a research report by "Dongxing Securities", after 2015, the growth rate of commercial business buildings and office buildings declined, and the growth rate declined in the following four years.
As we all know, those large-scale commercial buildings are the main indicators that affect the prosperity of large-scale central air-conditioning projects. The decline of this indicator undoubtedly makes the market demand for commercial central air-conditioning suffer a greater "disruption."
On the other hand, government project supervision has been further strengthened. Continuing the sluggish market conditions in 2013 and 2014, local government projects have been suspended, project approvals have become more complicated, the construction of buildings and halls has remained restrained, and people's livelihood projects such as medical care, education, and transportation have also remained cautious.
Therefore, in order to get rid of this industry cycle, the infrastructure field represented by "rail transit" has become a new direction for competition in the commercial central air-conditioning market.
According to the "Outline for Building a Powerful Transportation Country" issued in 2019, it is clearly stated that starting from 2021, to the middle of this century, the building of a strong transportation country will be promoted in two stages. Among them, by 2035, it will basically become a powerful country in transportation.
Local transportation departments responded positively. The data shows that in 2020, a total of 26 cities in the Mainland will increase the operating mileage of rail transit to 1,296.36 kilometers and 828 new operating stations.
Due to the stringent requirements of rail transit for air-conditioning systems, for a long time in the past, its central air-conditioning systems have won bids from foreign brands. However, as mentioned above, although local companies are one step behind, they are catching up quickly, and they are slowly gaining a greater voice in this field.
On January 13, according to the data of 2020 China's urban rail transit air-conditioning system winning bids announced by "RT Rail Transit", according to market share statistics, Haier central air-conditioning accounted for 23.83%, Gree accounted for 23.33%, and Midea accounted for 22.11%. .
It is not difficult to find that local companies represented by Haier, Gree and Midea firmly occupy the top three positions and "seize" nearly 70% of the market share. The familiar foreign brands McQuay and Daikin are among them.
In fact, most of the market demand for commercial central air conditioners comes from the infrastructure sector. After the new infrastructure in 2020 is proposed, it will undoubtedly open up new growth space for the commercial central air-conditioning market in the next few years.
Big names compete for layout, opportunities and hidden worries coexist
Undoubtedly, in the new "Colosseum", the competition between brands needs more.
Because in the field of commercial central air-conditioning, whether it is the changes in the raw material costs of upstream companies or the changes in the overall market demand, it is a big challenge for small and medium brands, and they will face "survival crisis" at every turn. Therefore, it is still those big brands who really have the right to speak in this field.
In 2019, Gree, Haier, and Midea won most of the central air-conditioning projects at the Capital Daxing Airport in one fell swoop, implying the leading position of these three Chinese manufacturers in the domestic commercial central air-conditioning market.
However, the competition among the three is obviously unavoidable for both local companies. In order to occupy more market share, the actions of these major brands have accelerated significantly in recent years.
1. Gree: "Leveraging" the technological leadership of the centrifugal chiller series
In fact, Gree is the first company to establish a central air-conditioning research and development organization. In 1998, in order to break the monopoly of the four major American players on large chillers, Gree began to develop large chillers, which was successfully developed in 2000. And this also marks that my country's national industry has since possessed the independent intellectual property rights of the centrifugal chiller series.
In December 2011, Gree's world's first high-efficiency DC frequency conversion centrifugal chiller officially rolled off the production line, with 100% independent intellectual property rights. So far, Gree has broken the monopoly of foreign companies in the field of central air-conditioning and redefines the new standard of energy saving for centrifugal units.
Recently, Gree Central Air-Conditioning won the bid for the renewal and renovation project of chillers in 9 stations of Shanghai Metro Line 2. It is reported that Gree will provide 14 Gree CCE series magnetic levitation frequency conversion centrifugal chillers and 28 Gree modular frequency conversion screw units, covering 9 site HVAC system upgrades.
According to the person in charge of Gree Central Air Conditioning: "At present, Gree Central Air Conditioning has provided professional services for a large number of rail transit projects in 23 cities in China, and has been widely recognized and trusted by the project parties."
2. Haier: usher in new market opportunities with magnetic levitation centrifuges
The successful application of magnetic levitation centrifuges is bringing new market opportunities for Haier's commercial central air conditioners.
Data shows that from 2017 to 2019, the market size of magnetic levitation centrifuges increased by 123%, 61.20% and 43.7% year-on-year, and they have good applications in the new construction and renovation of airports, rail transit, hotels, and commercial buildings.
In 2006, Haier launched the first magnetic levitation central air conditioner in China. With its leading advantage, Haier Central Air Conditioning took the lead in opening up the application and development of magnetic levitation centrifuges in the domestic market.
In public buildings, the energy consumption of the central air-conditioning system accounts for more than 50% of the energy consumption of the building. Haier's most advantageous magnetic levitation technology not only greatly improves the energy efficiency and operational stability of central air conditioners, but also increases the energy saving effect by 50% compared with ordinary solutions. Today, when building energy efficiency is receiving increasing attention, Haier's technology will greatly enhance its market competitiveness.
As an important part of the building energy saving market, rail transit has also become one of Haier's magnetic levitation centrifuges. According to statistics, Haier central air-conditioning has successively won more than 20 lines including Shenzhen Metro, Nanjing Metro and Tianjin Metro. Haier Central Air Conditioning has also taken a path of differentiated development in the rail transit industry with its magnetic levitation centrifuge technology.
Taking the Shenzhen Metro Line 14 with a single project of over 100 million yuan as an example, a high-efficiency computer room solution with 62 Haier magnetic levitation central air conditioners as the core is adopted. The air-conditioning system adopts a Feng Shui linkage intelligent control system to provide wisdom, energy saving, and Comfortable subway air solution.
The solution has high stability and adapts to the all-weather subway environment. In addition, there is an intelligent environmental control system that can provide early warning of failures up to 45 minutes in advance, which greatly reduces the failure rate. Through this control system, users can see information such as energy consumption curves on mobile phones and computers, and can also perform centralized control and partition management, which not only saves energy in operation, but also saves energy in maintenance management.
At present, 36 companies in the industry have entered the magnetic levitation centrifuge market, and Haier central air-conditioning has occupied the largest domestic market share for 14 consecutive years.
3. Midea: hit the "combination boxing" of four ace products
In order to better cater to the market demand for commercial central air conditioners, Midea central air conditioners launched a new comprehensive solution for "commercial space" in 2019.
The solution integrates four major "ace products": M-BMS intelligent building management system, Sinan series magnetic levitation frequency conversion centrifugal chiller, MDV7 series full DC frequency conversion intelligent cloud multi-connection group, and flame series full DC frequency conversion low temperature air source heat pump unit.
Among them, M-BMS Smart Building Management System is a comprehensive automated management platform developed by Midea for building equipment. It is reported that it can achieve a 20% improvement in building comfort, a 30% reduction in electricity consumption, a 50% reduction in equipment management personnel, and the implementation of the national energy-saving and emission reduction targets 11 years in advance.
Obviously, this system will not only "compete" with the previous two brands in energy-saving technology, it will also enhance Midea's competitive advantage in projects such as commercial office buildings and large shopping malls, and increase the chance of winning bids.
According to incomplete statistics, in the 34 cities that have started construction of rail transit and conducted bidding for HVAC equipment projects, Midea's central air-conditioning has received 28 urban subway HVAC projects, with a coverage rate of 82%.
However, even from the surface, these major local companies have already won certain advantages for themselves in the commercial central air-conditioning market. But it is undeniable that in terms of technology, products and comprehensive strength, they still have a big gap compared with the major central air-conditioning companies in the United States and Japan.
According to industry insiders, in most commercial central air-conditioning projects, local companies can win mostly because of their low prices. But obviously, price advantage alone cannot support the dominant position of these domestic brands in the commercial central air-conditioning market. The improvement of comprehensive strength is more important.
Gree intends to continue to focus on the core technology of central air conditioning. In September 2020, the nuclear-grade chiller independently developed by Gree was appraised by experts, and its main technical indicators reached the "international leading" level. Under the background of my country's construction of a green and low-carbon system, Gree's technology will gain greater advantages.
Haier took the lead in the development of IoT central air conditioning. While continuing to improve the construction of the IoT cloud service platform, it launched the industry's first IoT central air conditioning application standard, accelerating the industry's transformation from "manufacturing" to "intelligent manufacturing." At present, Haier's central air-conditioning interconnected factory has increased production efficiency by 24%, energy utilization by 14%, reduced operating costs by 8%, and shortened product development cycles by 23%, achieving significant economic and social benefits.
Midea is following its core development strategy of “Comprehensive Digitization and Comprehensive Intelligence” released in 2019, and injects technologies such as big data analysis, Internet of Things control, AI algorithms, and cloud computing into the building construction, and is ready to enter the “smart building market”. "work hard. It is reported that in November 2020, Midea's Central Air Conditioning Division was officially renamed HVAC and Building Division.
In the long run, whether it is core technology innovation or product quality upgrade, it should become a key issue for local enterprises. Only through continuous accumulation and building stronger competitiveness can they be truly invincible in China's commercial central air-conditioning market.
*The pictures in this article are from the Internet
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