Text |?Zhang jikang
Editor on duty |?Orb
Vision |?Linxi
Not long ago, Dong Mingzhu reused a female cadre and divided Wang Ziru’s right to speak on channel reform.Lu Luqun, the new sales director in charge of Gree’s household appliances business department, is also an "iron lady" who once won the defense war of Gree Hebei dealers with great vigour.Recently, when Dong Mingzhu punched in Hanfu in the ancient city of Luoyi, Lu Luqun was also her Hanfu girlfriends group.
Wang Ziru’s opponent is here.
Dong Mingzhu, who is quick to talk, has been searched again because of some remarks.
Recently, when Dong Mingzhu talked about his feelings about the hit drama My Altay, he said that "migrant workers can resign if they want to relax, which is a personal choice". Then he said, "Like me, I haven’t had a rest for more than 30 years. Do you think it’s a loss or a blessing?" Not surprisingly, the migrant workers who have just been "backstab" by Wang Ma are still angry with Dong Mingzhu’s remarks.
As the "Iron Lady" who has been at the helm of Gree for more than 20 years, Dong Mingzhu has always been known for her bold personality and quick words. existAfter the revenue has reached the best record in history, Dong Mingzhu still hangs on the hot search for many times because of his remarks such as "Dong Yuhui’s national sea election" and "not firing young people".
There is a hot search for all kinds of comments here, and Dong Mingzhu is not idle there, and he frequently moves his knife internally. Recently, Gree Electric has welcomed a new "Iron Lady"-Lu Luqun.
In May, Gree Electric issued two notices in succession, one was "Notice on the Establishment of Household Appliances Business Department", and the other was "Notice on the appointment of Comrade Lu Luqun". The former announced that Gree Electric would set up the first household appliances business department in history, while the latter announced that Lu Luqun would be the sales director of the department. From the rank point of view, Lu Luqun, together with Wang Ziru, head of the channel reform project, will become Dong Mingzhu’s right-hand man in channel reform.
"It can be said that Wang Ziru has ushered in a competitor," said Liu Buchen, a senior analyst in the home appliance industry. "Wang Ziru has always been responsible for the channel reform, but now the channel of ice washing business has been handed over to Lu Luqun. To some extent, Wang Ziru will try to prove himself. ".
As a manager whose exposure is far less than that of Dong Mingzhu and Wang Ziru, Lu Luqun himself is somewhat mysterious, but he has been deeply involved in the home appliance industry. According to public information, Lu Luqun graduated from Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, and worked in Fangtai E-commerce Department and JD.COM Retail Appliance Division successively.
What made Lu Luqun famous was the fact that Xu Zifa, the general distributor of Hebei, turned against the water and sold Philips. In 2022, Xu Zifa, the general distributor of Gree Hebei, suddenly changed to sell Philips Electric Appliances. Lu Lu Qun, then CEO of Zhuhai Huange Digital Technology Co., Ltd., was appointed as the general agent of Gree Electric in Hebei, which helped Gree quickly stabilize the dealer relationship.
It is understood that Lu Luqun has stabilized the market of Hebei dealers. In the first quarter of this year, the order amount of Gree dealers in Hebei exceeded 1 billion, the middle and high-end sales accounted for over 55%, and the installation volume increased by 30% year-on-year, setting the best result in recent years. After this battle, Lu Luqun was highly valued and valued by Dong Mingzhu more and more.
According to Tianyancha data, Lu Luqun is also the chairman of Henan Gree Ice Wash Sales Company. It is worth mentioning that this company was established on May 15th, a week before Gree held a new product launch conference in Luoyang.
In the recent public appearances of Dong Mingzhu, besides Wang Ziru, there are also many figures of Lu Luqun. Dong Mingzhu punched in Hanfu in the ancient city of Luoyi, and Lu Luqun was her best friend group of Hanfu. Dong Mingzhu visited Luoyang workshop, and Lu Luqun followed around. At the new product launch conference in Luoyang, Lu Lu Qun wearing a blue shirt was also quite eye-catching.
This conference, which has no air conditioning, only refrigerators, washing machines and other new products, is also the first public appearance of Lu Luqun after taking up his new job. At the meeting, dressed in a blue suit and skirt, she introduced new products to the dealers present, and explained how Gree would increase the sales of household appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines that Gree was not good at through digitalization.
"I didn’t know Lu Luqun well before, and this is the first time I met her." A dealer present told the "city boundary", "I felt that she was very capable and should be a very capable leader." On the social platform, some dealers also requested to take photos with Lu Luqun, and Lu Luqun himself smiled and responded, which seemed very friendly.
According to the dealers present, Wang Ziru, who had been accompanying Dong Mingzhu that day, did not give a speech on the stage.
Dealers are under great pressure
Although air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines belong to white electricity, they are interlaced like mountains.For today’s Gree, it is not easy to enter the ice washing track in the Red Sea.
"Gree’s brand label is too obvious, giving the public the impression that Gree is an air conditioner, and other businesses are definitely unprofessional," a veteran of the home appliance industry told the "city boundary". "Gree’s market share of washing machines and refrigerators is approaching zero. In the past few years, Gree’s Jinghong refrigerators still have some sales, and some Jinghong refrigerators on the JD.COM platform have sold tens of thousands of units. Looking at it now, the sales volume of a single unit is only a hundred digits. "
Jinghong refrigerator is one of the most famous brands in Gree’s ice washing business. Even so, it is hard to find its sales in the financial report. According to the data of Aoweiyun. com in April this year, Jinghong refrigerator can’t be found in the top 20 refrigerator brands in terms of online or offline channels.
"One is technology, and the other is pricing," the above-mentioned person said. "Jinghong refrigerator has no fresh-keeping technology, and the product pricing is a bit high. It may be that the management is too confident about its products."
"The lack of product strength itself is the fundamental factor that Gree can’t always sell white goods except air conditioners." Liu Buchen believes that "Gree has no breakthrough in white goods technology in recent years, and it is difficult to play an advantage because of the lack of explosive products. Air conditioners do well, which does not mean that refrigerators and washing machines can also do well."
On the other hand, the independent ice washing business is also facing greater channel pressure. Although Dong Mingzhu promised not to let dealers do business at a loss at the scene, judging from the increasingly tense relationship between dealers and Gree, it is also a difficult problem to persuade dealers to sell products that Gree has little advantage.
Since the impact of e-commerce, Gree Electric, which has always been inseparable from offline dealers, has gradually reformed its channels and marched online. In order to seize the lost market, Gree tried to attract consumers with low-price strategy, but it violated the interests of the huge offline distribution network, and the dissatisfaction accumulated day by day.
In 2020, Dong Mingzhu began live broadcast with goods, with 13 live broadcasts, with sales of 47.62 billion yuan, accounting for 27.93% of Gree Electric’s revenue that year. However, such achievements are sold at a price lower than the dealer’s price. According to media reports at that time, the price of one inverter air conditioner in Gree was close to 2,300 yuan, and the price of ordering in the live room was only 1,819 yuan.
How beautiful the live data is, how ugly the face of the offline dealer is. The offline staff told the "city boundary" that many air conditioners sold live at that time were contracted by dealers because of the low price. According to Dong Mingzhu, in the sales of a live broadcast, GMV diverted by dealers can reach one third of the total revenue.
However, just after the live broadcast of the 618 th National Congress in that year, the third largest shareholder of the company, namely Gree’s distributor channel alliance "Jinghai Internet" reduced its holdings by 110 million shares, accounting for 1.86% of Gree Electric’s total share capital, and cashed in more than 3.5 billion yuan.
"Dong Mingzhu stores, JD.COM, Tmall and offline stores have more channels, and consumers have started to shop around. In the past, an air conditioner could earn hundreds of dollars, but now it is a smile to earn a hundred." The above personnel said.
Such reform has also brought Gree Electric’s relationship with veterans who have worked hard together to a freezing point.
In 2021, Huang Hui, the CEO who was once known as Dong Mingzhu’s successor, joined Philips Air Conditioning, and Vinfom Hu, the assistant to the president, and Xu Zifa, a distributor in Hebei, also switched from Gree to Philips. Guo Shuzhan, a big distributor in Henan Province, joined Midea, while Duan Xiufeng, a big distributor in Shandong Province, started to operate the "fourth platform" to sell brands of electrical appliances such as Oaks, Gree Electric and Midea, and "everyone sells them".
Not only that, but the sales pressure of dealers is also getting bigger and bigger. Many dealers have to digest the backlog of inventory pressure by themselves. "Especially after 2020, Gree will introduce some special packages to dealers, but dealers need to raise some mid-to high-end machines in proportion, such as the Moon Goddess." Relevant persons from channels told the "city boundary" that "the goddess of the moon must be mentioned in the rebate, otherwise the rebate money will be gone."
As a high-end model launched by Gree, the performance of the Moon Goddess with a price of more than 8,000 yuan on the e-commerce platform is also unsatisfactory. In the flagship store jointly operated by Gree, a household appliance in JD.COM, the monthly sales volume of Moon Goddess is only 17 pieces.
"In the past, there were rewards for cashback every New Year Festival and Home Improvement Festival, but now there are very few, even if there are subsidies, there is a lot less." The person said.
Difficult to find the second curve
Integrating marketing, splitting channels, and promoting Lu Luqun, all kinds of actions show that Gree Electric doesn’t want to let the air-conditioning business be the only one.
Gree Electric mentioned in the original notice of "Establishing Household Appliances Business Department" that the functions and personnel of household air conditioner, small household appliances business department, ice washer and household appliances business department should be merged. In addition, Dong Mingzhu also indicated that it would set up independent sales companies for refrigerators, washing machines and household appliances in various provinces in China.
This means that Gree Electric will focus on the ice washing business in marketing, but in terms of channels, it will separate the air conditioning business, so that air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines will no longer be sold together.
For a long time, the slogan "Good air conditioning, made by Gree" has been deeply rooted in consumers’ minds. Air-conditioning business has also consistently accounted for more than 70% of Gree Electric’s total revenue. Thanks to the influence of global warming, the air-conditioning industry ushered in a recovery last year, with the first positive growth in shipments in the past three years, which also enabled Gree Electric to achieve the best performance in history.
In 2023, the total revenue of Gree’s air-conditioning business was 151.2 billion yuan, up 12.13% year-on-year, which directly led Gree to break through the revenue mark of 200 billion yuan, up 7.82% year-on-year. On the other hand, the total revenue of household appliances business was only 4 billion yuan, accounting for only 1.96%, down 12.39% year-on-year.
In contrast, Midea’s HVAC revenue in 2023 was 161.111 billion yuan, accounting for 43.31% of revenue, but the revenue of consumer appliances was 134.692 billion yuan, accounting for 36.2% of revenue.
Air-conditioning business accounts for the bulk, which is closely related to Dong Mingzhu’s attitude of betting on air-conditioning. Before entering Gree, Dong Mingzhu read in the newspaper that the greenhouse effect leads to global warming, and residents’ income is getting higher and higher. She judged that the air-conditioning industry must make a lot of money in the future. As for other diversification measures, Dong Mingzhu has been less interested.
The most intuitive embodiment is in Gree’s cash flow. For a long time, Gree was a full cash cow, with abundant funds on the account, cautious investment in M&A, and less capital expenditure of the company. It is also known for its high dividends. On the one hand, this is the embodiment of Gree’s strong ability to resist risks, but on the other hand, there are many "dead money" in the account, which also means that Gree’s development strategy is more traditional and there is strategic confusion about where to go.
If the internal goal tends to be stable, then it must be the external environment that promotes its change. In the first half of 2015, Gree Electric lost the status of air conditioner boss and wasBeyond. Since 2020, Gree Electric’s air-conditioning revenue has been continuously surpassed by Midea Group, and the gap has widened from 3.3 billion yuan to 9.9 billion yuan in 2023.
It is also from these years that Gree Electric began to eagerly seek diversified layout. In 2021, the business composition of Gree’s annual report expanded from five to seven, with two more items called industrial products and green energy. From mobile phones, industryFrom new energy vehicles to prefabricated vegetables and semiconductors, Gree has entered the game. Some, such as Gree mobile phones, have gone up in smoke, and some have not brought obvious revenue in the short term. In 2023, the combined revenue of the two new businesses was only 8.34%.
On the other hand, Gree’s dependence on air-conditioning business is growing, from less than 70% in 2019 to more than 70% today.
In recent years, Dong Mingzhu’s revenue target for Gree Electric has also been gradually downgraded. In 2018, Dong Mingzhu said that the sales target of Gree Electric in 2023 was 600 billion yuan. After failing to achieve the target of 600 billion yuan, Dong Mingzhu changed his mind to double Gree Electric’s performance in the next five years, that is, to create a Gree in five years. However, where will this increase of 200 billion come from?