Brand new world for 'Made-in-China'

By Cecily Liu in London (China Daily) Updated: 2015-02-16 07:41

A stand markets TCL Corp at an exhibition in Beijing.[Wu Changqing/China Daily]

On Appliance Online, the UK's leading online retailer (ao.com), a fridge from Haier costs about 400 pounds ($600), as opposed to a Bosch fridge that can cost up to 700 pounds.

Haier Europe, whose headquarters are in France, has subsidiaries in Belgium, Britain, Italy, Poland, Russia and Spain. Sales for the 2014-15 financial year reached $550 million, 10 percent more than in the previous year. It has a workforce of about 400.

Fifteen of its engineers work in a 1,000-square-meter research and development center in Nuremberg, Germany, to fine-tune designs for its dishwashers, refrigerators and freezers. It also has an R&D center in Lyon, France.

Haier says sales of its TVs rose 15 percent in the first half of last year compared with the first half of 2013.

Another Chinese company making innovative strides in its products is Chinese electronics maker TCL. In fact, Didier Juin, COO of TCL Europe, uses the term "affordable innovation" to describe how the company approaches its products.

"We do not pretend to be a leader in innovation. You could say our intention is to be 'fast followers', " Juin says.

TCL Europe focuses mostly on the design of its products. Its line of touch-screen televisions, for example, comes in a range of bright colors, such as pink, green and blue, targeted at buyers in the 25-35 age range.

The subsidiary has an R&D center in France that ensures that TCL products brought to the European market meet appropriate regional requirements and certification, which for TCL qualifies as innovative measures. The R&D team also collects data about user experience and shares them with the R&D team in China.

Like Haier, the Chinese white goods manufacturer Hisense has also made progress selling its electronic products in Europe.

In the UK it has been successful with its refrigerators due to their high-tech features, low cost and reliability. Fridges from Bosch Siemens or Samsung, for example, are generally priced about 100 to 200 pounds more than fridges from Hisense.

And like Haier it was once an OEM, producing parts for many international brands including the British brand Fridgemaster.

Louis Hou, managing director of Hisense UK, says the company has grown quickly because of its product quality and its understanding of the UK customer.

It has succeeded in its overseas expansion because it has followed three paths: starting out as an OEM for Western brands; creating partnerships with international distributors to drive sales of Hisense's branded products; and managing its branding and sales with its own team of employees.