Number One
Haier, a Chinese home electronics giant, took first place in terms of sales in the global home appliance market in 2022. This is the result of making a series of M&A deals with GE based in the United States, Fisher & Paykel based in New Zealand and Candy, based in Italy. By brands rather than sales revenue, LG Electronics maintained its No. 1 position.
According to Haier’s business report on April 4, sales of Haier’s home appliance division, excluding electronic parts and TVs, were tallied at 227.94677 billion yuan (about 43.7658 trillion won or US$33.3193 billion) in 2022. During the same period, sales of LG Electronics’ H&A Division in charge of the home appliance business amounted to 29.8955 trillion won (US$22.7613 billion), falling behind Haier by 14 trillion won (US$11 billion). Whirlpool recorded 25.4834 trillion won (US$19.4021 billion). A year ago, in 2021, Haier also took the world’s No. 1 spot in household appliances. At the time, its sales were about 39.2187 trillion won (US$29.8680 billion), a difference of more than 12 trillion won from LG Electronics’ 27.1097 trillion won (US$20.6461 billion).
Among Korean companies, LG Electronics surpassed Whirlpool in the United States in terms of sales, becoming the global No. 1 home electronics company for the first time in 2020. It maintained its No. 1 position for two consecutive years until last year. However, this is the result of overlooking Haier, which is relatively unknown in Korea. “It is difficult to directly compare Haier’s group sales, which are the consolidated sales of several brands such as GE, which Haier took over, and LG Electronics’ sales are sales posted by one single brand,” LG Electronics said with reference to this.
Haier rose to prominence on the world stage when it bought foreign home appliance companies. After buying Japan’s Sanyo, it even took over the home appliance division from GE in the United States in early 2016. As of the end of 2014, before GE was in talks with Haier over selling off its home appliance business unit from GE, the unit’s sales sat at 9 trillion won or about US$8.44 billion. Haier has grown tremendously since the acquisition of the unit from GE. Haier’s home appliance sales jumped 1.5 times from about 12 trillion won (US$9.1 billion) in 2015 just before the acquisition of the unit to 18 trillion won (US$14 billion) in 2016.
Haier’s purchases of overseas home appliance companies were made in order to break away from its low-priced brand image as a Chinese company as well as to increase its size, analysts say. Recently, Haier is focusing on the smart home business while emphasizing its Internet of Things-based premium home appliance strategy.