There is still room for growth in the domestic refrigerator market. Midea has launched its “thinnest” sideboard refrigerator, targeting the mid - to high - end consumer group.

Author | Huang Nan

Editor | Yuan Silai

As a large household appliance in the traditional white goods field, the product design and functional form of refrigerators have reached a highly mature stage in the past period. However, in recent years, two obvious trends have emerged in the development of the entire industry.

Firstly, it is high - end orientation. Nowadays, users are not satisfied with the basic fresh - keeping and refrigeration needs of refrigerators. Their pursuit of high - end features covers many dimensions. For example, in terms of appearance, they expect refrigerators to better integrate into the home decoration style and achieve a seamless installation effect. They also demand more intelligent functions, including using AI to manage refrigerator freshness, remote control via mobile phone APP, intelligent identification of food types, and automatic adjustment of temperature and humidity.

Compared with the earlier situation where mid - and low - end products priced at 4,000 - 5,000 yuan dominated the market, the price ceiling of the refrigerator market is being broken. For instance, the high - end flagship products of Midea can be priced up to 50,000 yuan, indicating an extremely obvious high - end trend in the domestic refrigerator market.

Secondly, it is scenario - based and segmented development. From the perspective of specific scenarios, it focuses on users, usage locations, and purposes, aiming to make refrigerators meet specific needs. For example, considering the characteristics of the young group, such as reduced cooking frequency and increased social needs, the functions of refrigerators have extended from simple food storage to leisure, entertainment, and interactive scenarios.

Midea Sideboard Refrigerator

Recently, Midea launched the world's first sideboard refrigerator, which is only 45 cm thick and has a capacity of up to 427 liters. It is currently the thinnest refrigerator in the world.

Compared with traditional refrigerators with a general thickness of over 60 cm, this refrigerator is specially designed for sideboards. Its thickness is the same as the depth of a standard sideboard, enabling seamless embedding and solving the problems of large space occupation and unsightly protruding cabinets of traditional refrigerators.

This sideboard refrigerator pioneered a storage pattern of "ready - to - eat on the left, for cooking on the right". The left area can store ready - to - eat drinks and snacks and is equipped with a three - fold shelf to flexibly store items of different sizes and heights, such as bottles and cans. The right area is used for storing fresh ingredients and is equipped with an independent temperature control system to ensure freshness. Through refined partition storage, it improves the flexibility of placement, "moving" the refrigerator from the kitchen scenario to the living - dining room scenario, which can meet the young users' needs for both practicality and aesthetics of the refrigerator.

The press conference site of Midea Sideboard Refrigerator

Zhao Guoyao, the chief product expert of Midea Refrigerator Division, told 36Kr, "Currently, the Chinese refrigerator market is in a golden development stage. In the long - term development, there is still room for growth in the domestic market, mainly reflected in the optimization and upgrading of the product structure and the precise satisfaction of the needs of segmented scenarios."

Zhao Guoyao pointed out that in the past, the refrigerator market was dominated by foreign brands. However, in recent years, foreign brands have invested less in this field compared with domestic brands. Chinese home appliance manufacturers, including Midea, have launched products in various specifications.

Chinese families have increasingly higher requirements for home integration and stronger demands in terms of taste, appearance, and user experience. In the domestic home appliance market, high - end products have achieved remarkable development results. For example, in the field of built - in refrigerators, the development of pure - flat built - in refrigerators in China has only been for three or four years, but their market share has rapidly increased, approaching or even exceeding one - third.

"Such rapid changes were difficult to achieve in the previous development cycle. The core reason is the change in user needs," said Zhao Guoyao.

Midea Sideboard Refrigerator

Taking the high - end brand COLMO as an example, COLMO refrigerators support a - 40°C deep - cooling function, which can be used to preserve high - end ingredients, especially with significant advantages in preserving deep - sea fish, attracting many users who love salmon to buy. After users put in a whole fish, they can actually experience that the ingredients can still maintain the freshness as when they were just purchased after long - term storage.

Based on the different needs of different user profiles and different segmentation situations, Midea has also launched corresponding product series. For example, for users with limited housing space in first - tier cities such as Shanghai, the high - end line of brands features products with small volume and high capacity. For users with "large - storage" needs, the maximum capacity of Midea's refrigerator series can reach 750 liters to meet the large - scale storage needs of multi - family households.

Secondly, regarding the personalized customization needs of the same type of customers, taking the panel color as an example, considering the matching needs of different home environments, many product series of Midea currently support customization in different colors.

In the future, COLMO will further strengthen high - end customization services. In addition to being able to replace the panel, personalized choices can also be made for internal configurations, such as space accessories and fresh - keeping functions.