"When I first arrived in Shunde, I felt like a drifting duckweed landing in the Fuan Industrial Zone of Shunde. Little did I know that 18 years later, we would take root and flourish in this land. The growth of Bear Electric further confirms how fertile the soil of Shunde truly is."
At the 18th-anniversary celebration and new product launch of Bear Electric, Li Yifeng, the chairman and general manager of Bear Electric, expressed the relationship between Bear Electric and Shunde in this way. He expressed gratitude to Shunde for nurturing Bear Electric, praising the open-minded and proactive government, the deep industrial foundation, and the pragmatic and pioneering entrepreneurial atmosphere in Shunde.
Since the 1970s, the stage of Shunde's home appliance industry was set with the successful creation of the first desktop fan. Subsequently, Shunde has seen the birth of the world's first disinfection cabinet, the world's first dual-mode frequency conversion microwave oven... As of 2023, Shunde's total output of home appliances accounts for about 15% of the country, with exports making up around 10%.
The continuous emergence of one achievement after another stems from Shunde's pioneering spirit, attracting "Little Bear Appliances" to take root here and flourish.
From a founding team of just over 10 employees to becoming the "leading force in creative small home appliances," from an 800m² small factory to owning a total area of about 580,000m² of smart manufacturing base, from the successful development of the first yogurt maker to becoming a beloved brand of small home appliances for young people, Little Bear Appliances, rooted here for 18 years, vividly illustrates the thriving development of Shunde's home appliance industry and serves as a microcosm of China's manufacturing industry transitioning from big to strong.
Born in the era of shipbuilding and venturing into the open seas, products shine brightly with priority
The world looks to China for home appliances, China looks to Guangdong, and Guangdong looks to Shunde. When Shunde was first awarded the title of "China's Home Appliance Capital" in 2006, the story of Little Bear Appliances began.
At that time, during a period of frequent domestic food safety incidents, Little Bear Appliances, with keen insight into the demands of the times, put forward the brand concept of "sharing a healthy life." The yogurt maker, once launched, received a positive response from young consumers, with sales exceeding tens of millions to date.
Looking back at the yogurt maker today, it embodies Little Bear Appliances' value orientation of "putting products first." It requires companies to continuously create good products that meet user needs while also having the strength to "do well with each product," constantly creating "flagship products," pushing the limits of team innovation, and setting standards for the industry.
The yogurt maker became an instant hit, and then, driven by the value concept of "product first," Xiaobear Electronics has seen a series of explosive hot-selling products, from the dormitory essential egg cooker, to the office essential health pot, the party essential foldable multi-function pot, and the voltage-changing rice cooker that cooks fragrant and sweet rice in 16 minutes, all deeply loved by young consumers.
Relying on two key routes of strengthening essential categories and expanding emerging categories, Xiaobear Electronics upgrades the traditional essential products through technological innovation, functional iteration, while continuously expanding emerging categories. With one explosive product after another, it consistently meets users' specific and nuanced high-quality lifestyle needs, while also gaining market recognition. The annual report shows that in 2023, Xiaobear Electronics' electric and pot-type kitchen appliances grew by 18.24% and 19.84% respectively year-on-year. In addition, revenue from lifestyle small appliances such as dual-cylinder washing machines and humidifiers increased by 22.80% year-on-year, while other small appliances including foot baths and high-speed hair dryers increased by as much as 67.54%.
Looking back, Xiaobear Electronics' rapid development is closely related to the fertile industrial atmosphere of Shunde. Sociologist Fei Xiaotong believes that in the 1990s, Shunde transitioned from the "borrowing ship" stage dominated by foreign companies to the "building ship" stage dominated by mainland enterprises. In 2006 when Xiaobear Electronics was founded, Shunde's industrial upgrade took a further step towards independent innovation and brand building.
If the title of "China's Home Appliance Capital" marks the transformation of Shunde's home appliance industry from big to strong, then Xiaobear Electronics' rise is a typical success story of Shunde's "building ship" strategy. Today, Xiaobear Electronics independently develops over 80 product categories, has more than 900 product models, has won over 2,100 national patents, and has become the "leading player in creative small home appliances."
In the 18 years since its establishment, Xiaoxiong Electric Appliances has not only witnessed the growth of a company but also served as a vivid testament to the development of the Shunde home appliance industry, reflecting the overall trend of China's manufacturing industry - a transition from processing and manufacturing to brand innovation.
Embracing the wave of digital intelligence to create new productive forces
The 2024 Government Work Report proposes a vigorous promotion of the construction of a modern industrial system and the accelerated development of new productive forces.
Digital intelligence manufacturing, as an advanced productive force characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality, which can break away from traditional economic growth patterns and development paths, is the main technological route to achieve the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.
In recent years, Shunde has successively introduced a series of policies to strongly support manufacturing companies in carrying out digital and intelligent transformation. Currently, it has gathered and formed several industry clusters with active development and significant advantages, with particular prominence in the two 300 billion yuan-level industry clusters of smart home appliances and high-end equipment manufacturing.
On July 15, 2023, Xiaoxiong Electric Appliances' "Xiaoxiong Intelligent Small Home Appliance Manufacturing Base" Phase II project successfully topped out. With this, Xiaoxiong has established five major intelligent manufacturing bases, including four specialized whole-machine factories and multiple core component manufacturing factories.
At the same time, in order to continuously improve product quality, conduct product research and development, basic research, and technological innovation activities, Xiaoxiong Appliances has established a testing and evaluation center covering an area of approximately 2000 square meters. It includes over a dozen specialized laboratories such as safety testing labs, material testing labs, and environmental testing labs, equipped with a large number of high-precision modern testing instruments such as motor power measurement systems, walk-in constant temperature and humidity chambers, thermal shock test chambers, and simulated high-altitude test chambers.
Xiaoxiong Appliances' bold initiatives in smart manufacturing represent a glimpse of the wave of intelligent manufacturing in Shunde and even across China.
As a representative home appliance brand in Shunde, Xiaoxiong Appliances is fully committed to advancing the layout of smart manufacturing, enabling it to build a strong barrier in smart manufacturing, creating new productive forces that are efficient, high-quality, and innovative. This effort drives optimization and upgrading of production and supply chains, laying a solid manufacturing foundation for creating an intelligent, collaborative, and efficient product supply chain system, and establishing solid production and manufacturing bases with upstream and downstream partners in the small home appliance industry.
In addition to smart manufacturing, Xiaoxiong Appliances has rapidly followed up with digital operations, sequentially launching the "321" digital system upgrade project, enhancing overall business operation efficiency and organizational management efficiency. The specific measures involve using digital technology as the foundation, developing and integrating systems in various business areas such as research and development, production, supply chain, sales, and finance, utilizing next-generation digital platforms like ERP and intelligent manufacturing platforms to effectively manage digital and intelligent workflows, information flows, logistics, and fund flows, achieving resource sharing and highly coordinated work, seamlessly connecting creativity to realization, business opportunities to payments, and other core processes of the enterprise, thereby improving organizational operational efficiency.
Growing together with Shunde, small home appliances embark on a great voyage
According to data from the Huajing Industry Research Institute, the export volume of household appliances in China is projected to reach 3,717.41 million units in 2023, an increase of 350.96 million units compared to the same period in 2022, representing a year-on-year growth of 11.2%. The competitiveness of China's home appliance manufacturing industry is becoming increasingly robust, with growing acceptance in the global market, gradually moving away from OEM and price wars towards a direction of higher quality, greater efficiency, and more environmentally friendly products.
Against this backdrop, building and laying out brand influence, regional user demands, and overseas production capacity have become the primary concerns in the global expansion strategy of home appliance brands.
The globalization exploration of proprietary brands is not achieved overnight. Xiaoxiong Appliances' entry point is to focus on young consumers through cross-border e-commerce, expanding brand advantages overseas by precisely selecting products, promoting them, and continuously expanding channel coverage. Currently, the brand has entered over 100 countries including the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand, with rapid progress in the Southeast Asian market. According to the 2023 annual report, Xiaoxiong Appliances' foreign revenue increased by 105.66% year-on-year.
In the face of the vast global market, cultural diversity and uneven development determine the widespread demand for "localization," requiring companies to adapt to local conditions. Bear Electric's strategy has evolved from studying the global market to studying global users. For example, when Bear Electric's electric stew pot is sold in Malaysia, it is redesigned as a "Bak Kut Teh" function based on local dietary habits.
As overseas markets expand, ensuring production capacity keeps up with sales is also a key challenge for global brands. In response, Bear Electric's future strategy is to enhance its digital manufacturing capabilities, ultimately achieving manufacturing capacity overflow, establishing localized operational systems in different countries and regions, and realizing the goal of "recruiting local talent, using local resources, and making products that meet local needs."
From humble beginnings in OEM production to leading the industry and venturing into the world, Shunde is an indispensable coordinate in the history of China's home appliance industry. On this fertile land, Bear Electric, starting from user demand, drives product iteration through innovation, enters the global market with digital manufacturing, and with passion and vitality, writes a chapter of its own golden age. It epitomizes the development of Shunde's home appliance industry from nothing to prominence, symbolizing its journey to the world, continuously inspiring successors to strive forward.
