The lively policy of going to the countryside has finally expired. What impact will it have on the appliance industry? There is a voice in the industry that the policy of home appliances to the countryside has advanced the market ahead of schedule. Under the circumstance that stimulative subsidies have disappeared, the home appliance industry has seen a declining trend and industry reshuffle will be inevitable.

Last week, home appliances to the countryside in three provinces and one city, including Shandong, Qingdao, Henan, and Sichuan, ended "as scheduled." According to previous plans for home appliances to the countryside, another 14 provinces and cities will expire at the end of November next year, and the rest of the country will expire at the end of January 2013. Peng Wei, director of research and development of Beijing Zhongkang, believes that next year, the home appliance industry will usher in a period of post-policy era.

In December 2007, the first batch of home appliances to the countryside policy pilot, the state gave 13% of the product price subsidies to the countryside. Afterwards, the government adjusted the policy several times and successively extended the policy to the whole country.

Data released by the Ministry of Finance shows that in 2008 and the following two years, the number of products sold to the countryside has doubled. As of October 2011, the nationwide sales of home appliances to rural areas totaled 200 million units, achieved sales of 457.6 billion yuan, and cumulatively paid subsidies of 51.8 billion yuan.

Peng Yu believes that the most obvious impact of the home appliances to the countryside policy on the home appliance industry is to centralize the rural purchasing power, thus changing the downward trend of the home appliance industry.

According to statistics from China Yikang, from 2008 to 2010, the growth of the home appliance industry soared from 5% to 20.5%. However, the growth rate of the home appliance industry slowed down again in the first half of this year. In the first 10 months of this year, the industry growth rate dropped to 11.8%.

Many in the industry believe that after the policy is withdrawn, the home appliance industry will reshuffle. “In the past few years, the potential demand in the rural market has been released in advance. At present, the number of color TVs in rural areas has reached 100%, refrigerators and washing machines have also reached 60%. In the next two years, the industry will inevitably suffer from the attendant purchasing power. as a result of."

This may not be a downright bad thing for some companies that have taken the opportunity to establish third- and fourth-tier sales channels. With the improvement of large-scale enterprises in the local channels, the days of various SMEs will be even harder, and shuffling is inevitable.

In addition, from the development trend of home appliance companies this year, home appliance companies have begun to shift from the pursuit of scale growth to the pursuit of product upgrading. What is more typical is the continuous emergence of various concept home appliances, and the marketing growth of home appliance companies exceeds the sales volume. For consumers, the driving force for future purchases of home appliances will change from "yes" to "good".