AWE Aims To Stand At Position C Of The Global Home Appliance And Consumer Electronics Exhibition With An Innovative Background

The just concluded AWE2024, the 2024 China Home Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo held at the Shanghai New International Expo Center from March 14th to 17th, once again unleashed tremendous influence. AWE is held annually to answer one question: What is the direction of China's home appliance industry? Practitioners in every industry, including consumers who have aspirations for life, have seen the answer on AWE.
On the eve of the opening of AWE2024, the fourth meeting of the Central Committee of Finance and Economics was held and emphasized the promotion of a new round of large-scale equipment updates and the exchange of old for new consumer goods. Afterwards, the State Council released the Action Plan for Promoting Large scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Exchange, which identified 20 key tasks in four major actions and five aspects, including the implementation of the Consumer Goods Exchange Action. These include carrying out the exchange of old for new household appliances and promoting the exchange of home decoration consumer goods.
The measures at the national level have given the industry an unusual signal. Amidst speculation and anticipation, AWE2024 has kicked off, and CCTV's various platforms have paid unprecedented attention to AWE2024, making it particularly eye-catching. It is reported that the policy of exchanging old appliances for new ones has been announced, and the China Household Electrical Appliances Association has also put forward industry suggestions. Therefore, interpreting AWE2024 becomes more meaningful. In this context, China Home Appliance Network exclusively interviewed Jiang Feng, Executive Director of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association.
Technological innovation showcases and boosts industry confidence
So, as the country proposes a large-scale policy of exchanging old appliances and equipment for new ones, what impact and changes will AWE2024 bring under the combined effect?
Jiang Feng said, "At the policy level, the convening of AWE2024 has expanded the influence of policies and is conducive to the implementation of policies. Undoubtedly, it has also played the opening prelude to implementing the central government's policy of exchanging old for new."; At the industry level, we believe it is to boost morale, boost everyone's confidence in the market, and encourage enterprises to come up with more innovative and green intelligent products to provide consumers with more choices; At the consumer level, whether visiting exhibitions or learning through online live streaming, consumers can see all the achievements of home appliance innovation, experience good products firsthand, increase expectations and aspirations for intelligent innovative home appliances and new categories, and enhance consumers' motivation to trade in old for new
People can intuitively see that on AWE2024, whether it is the home vertical domain model HomeGPT pioneered by Haier Smart Home Brain or 20 intelligent scenes in 8 large spaces such as the living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom in the three winged bird scene, or the ULEDX full scene AI computing graphics platform upgraded with AI for Hisense, chip, light, and screen, Samsung's flagship Galaxy S24 series smartphones equipped with Galaxy AI; It is still Huawei's 1+8+N full scenario smart life solution for five major scenarios: travel, office, home, sports and health, and audio-visual entertainment, and Hisilicon's 5+2 intelligent terminal solution; Or it could be TCL and Hisense's Mini LED TVs with tens of thousands of level backlight zones, Samsung Transparent Micro LED TVs, Hisense Foldable Laser TVs/8K Screen Sound Laser TVs, Skyworth MR Head Display, TCL Thunderbird AR Glasses, Huawei Pocket2 Folding Screen Phones, Shaoyin Bone Conduction Earphones, Panasonic Smart Phones, and more, all reflecting intelligence everywhere and innovation everywhere.
As the core principle of AWE, AWE2024 answers how the Chinese home appliance industry can continue to innovate by taking advantage of previous achievements. So the innovation direction presented at this exhibition has at least three levels.
"The first and most important thing is intelligence," Jiang Feng further explained. "Firstly, product intelligence. You can see that all the products exhibited at AWE, including televisions, mobile phones, refrigerators, washing machines, and even small appliances, are combined with AI intelligence technology. The application of AI technology makes home appliance products more functional, experience better, and practical.". The second is scene intelligence, which involves the application of AI and IoT technologies in kitchen, living room, balcony, bedroom, and other whole house scenarios. After years of development, intelligent technology has evolved from concept to practical application, and it is becoming increasingly mature and close to life, deeply integrated with products and scenarios.
There is a detail that Jiang Feng mentioned, "At this year's AWE Samsung booth, there is a slogan called" AI for All ", which actually accurately expresses the face of industry intelligence. Intelligence is everywhere on AWE, and" AI for All "is also one of the industry directions.".
The second direction is nesting and embedding. Jiang Feng stated that the current trend of integrated customization of home appliances and home furnishings in the terminal market is prominent, and product series design can better meet this demand. Enterprises have basically launched series products at this year's AWE, highlighting the integration and coordination with home furnishings, as well as the unity of style and color tone. Embedded systems were also fully reflected in this exhibition. Initially, embedded kitchen appliances were used, but now refrigerators, washing and drying sets, cleaning appliances, etc. all emphasize embedded installation design.
The third direction is the trend of health and wellness. This concept first appeared on AWE, and the concept of health and wellness was formerly known as age friendly products. At this year's exhibition, Haier, Huawei, and Panasonic all set up health and wellness zones on their booths for visitors to experience. From their respective characteristics, the core of Huawei's health and wellness products is a smart health and wellness solution. Through AI assisted health and wellness sensors, they can detect various movement states of the elderly at home; Haier Smart Health combines software and hardware, covering three core areas: smart bathroom, smart sleep, and health net devices; Panasonic showcased health equipment such as massage chairs.
Jiang Feng believes that through AWE, each type of product has its own innovative direction, and innovation is the most distinctive background of the home appliance and consumer electronics industry. At the same time, innovation has become the biggest driving force for the home appliance and consumer electronics industry to cope with difficulties and challenges and achieve high-quality development.
Riding the wave of the times, AWE's innovation presents itself and dares to solve problems
Through AWE, we can see the direction of industry innovation. Similarly, in the tide of the times, AWE is also riding the wind and waves, integrating with the development of the times, and constantly innovating and presenting itself. If we take 2020 as the watershed, we will find that there have been many changes in the AWE of the pre 2020 pandemic era and the post 2020 pandemic era.
At the same time, the tremendous influence released by AWE has brought the entire industry and consumers together in the same time and space, while also attracting internet celebrities, bloggers, influencers, and celebrities to come and check in and explore exhibitions. The outside world can feel the organizer's ingenuity in organizing exhibitions with the multifaceted nature presented by AWE.
"We also have some ideas and considerations on how to keep up with the times. The industry is constantly innovating and breaking through circles, and AWE is also constantly innovating and breaking through circles to keep up with the development of the times." Jiang Feng introduced that the establishment of AWE was initially a stage of rapid development of e-commerce. AWE first strengthened cooperation with JD.com, and JD.com became the first channel merchant to participate in AWE. In recent years, with the rise of live streaming sales, AWE has opened a "live streaming night" during its expansion period. Through online live streaming, it quickly delivers new products and scene based trends that are released annually to consumers, following up on the huge changes presented on the channel end in this form. Nowadays, live streaming has become the norm for AWE, with new product releases, live sales, and exhibitions. As soon as AWE 2024 just opened, live broadcasts of various brands in exhibition areas can be seen everywhere.
Under the current background of diversified symbiosis and integrated development of channels, AWE2024 has unprecedented cooperation with channels and platforms of different formats such as JD, Taobao, Tmall, Tiktok, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Zhihu, etc. These channel merchants have launched various forms of publishing and interactive experiences in their respective exhibition areas. Platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Zhihu have published highly discussed and widely participated topics for AWE. The organizer also invited hundreds of experts and sales leaders from offline TOP channel merchants across the country to visit the exhibition and learn about the most comprehensive industry new products.
It is worth mentioning that AWE, together with multiple departments such as the Shanghai Pudong New Area Commerce Committee, the Shanghai Pudong Branch of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, and the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, held the "2024 Pudong Home Appliance Life Festival" during the AWE2024 exhibition period. AWE2024 was set as the main venue for the event, linking the four major commercial districts in Pudong (Century Hui, Zhengda Plaza, Red Star Macalline Pudong Shanghai South Shopping Mall, Lao Foye Department Store Shanghai Lujiazui Center Store), as well as home appliance brand chain stores such as JD.com and Suning.com, to carry out a variety of new product displays and green smart home appliance consumption promotion activities, making AWE2024 a leisure and entertainment check-in destination with rich consumer activities. Technology consumption carnival.
During the AWE2024 period, three top-level forums were held, namely "Sustainability is the Future -2024AWE Summit Forum", "Future Home Views Happiness -2024AWE Summit Forum", and "Diversified Symbiosis Following the Path -2024 China Home Appliance Innovation and Retail Summit". These forums discussed the direction of industry sustainable development, various possibilities for future smart living, and innovative development of retail channels, providing the top-level perspectives. At the three summits, renowned economic figures, executives from globally renowned market research companies, top executives from leading home appliance brands, and channel giants gave keynote speeches and discussed their perspectives, which greatly inspired the audience at the summit.
The integration and development of AWE with the times is a microcosm of innovation in China's home appliance industry. Long Yongtu, the Chief Negotiator for China's accession to the World Trade Organization and former Secretary General of the Boao Forum for Asia, made an opening statement during his participation in the "Sustainable Future 2024AWE Summit". He expressed his gratitude to the home appliance industry for being more than 20 years late. In the final industry negotiation stage of China's accession to the WTO, many industries such as agriculture, automotive, finance, insurance, telecommunications, and film had very difficult negotiations to cancel or reduce tariffs on foreign investment access. However, the home appliance industry did not have a negotiation process at that time because of its strong competitiveness and innovative development confidence, they said that there was no problem with foreign investment access.
To stand in the "C" position, it is even more important to stand firmly in the "C" position
At such a grand event, the outside world will always compare AWE with the CES and IFA exhibitions on the other side of the ocean. At the beginning of 2024, CES Exhibition welcomed its first offline exhibition after the opening of the epidemic, and the same was true for IFA Exhibition in September last year.
Jiang Feng never hesitates to talk about the comparison of the three major global exhibitions. She frankly stated that CES, IFA, and AWE each have their own outstanding advantages. The current advantages of CES exhibitions are reflected in automotive and front-end technology. IFA, as a home appliance and consumer electronics exhibition, has influence in the European region. However, from last year's exhibition, IFA showed signs of decline, with top companies in the United States and Japan basically not exhibiting. Local European home appliance brands have shown a decline in market competition, corresponding to the shrinking display area at IFA exhibitions. On the contrary, Chinese home appliance brands have become more prominent and active in IFA.
People have found that this year's AWE has unexpectedly and reasonably added many foreign faces, with many foreign corporate executives coming to AWE in groups to watch the exhibition, and even a foreign company having a team of 200 people. "Why are you here? What are you looking at? Look at the leading technologies on AWE: intelligent technology, innovative technology. It can be said that only AWE can see the leading technologies in the global home appliance and consumer electronics field," Jiang Feng said forcefully. "From this perspective, I believe AWE has the strength to lead the global home appliance and consumer electronics exhibition," Jiang Feng said.
People often say that relying on one's strength to stand in the "C" position is not an exaggeration to describe the current AWE. So the question is, how can AWE stand firm in the "C" position in the future, and what different expectations can the outside world have about AWE2025?
Jiang Feng stated that AWE will continue to hold every exhibition well in the future, but the purpose of organizing exhibitions has always been consistent: AWE should move towards high-quality exhibitions that are technology-based and digital. Technology oriented exhibitions should highlight the technological content, showcasing new technologies and innovative achievements in products and content. For example, the AWE2024 exhibition highlights intelligence: we must achieve global leadership in the integration of intelligent technology and applications. Digitalization emphasizes the use of more digital technologies and means for managing and organizing exhibitions. For example, the mini program developed by AWE is a condensed version of AWE, providing excellent digital tools for exhibitors, audiences, and other professionals from all walks of life. Digital exhibitions also emphasize the integration of online and offline exhibition presentation, dissemination, and other aspects.
At first, AWE was like a home appliance exhibition, but with the expansion of exhibition scale and content, it was positioned as a home appliance and consumer electronics exhibition. In the development of industry intelligence, AWE has expanded to smart homes. "Although the current name of AWE is still the Home Appliance and Consumer Electronics Exhibition, our positioning is a comprehensive display and experience platform for smart life. AWE is to allow people to have a panoramic view of future smart life," Jiang Feng said in conclusion.