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China’s ‘618’ Shopping Festival 2020: Huawei and Xiaomi Dominate on Tmall

► Against the backdrop of lavish subsidies and the rapid development of livestreaming technologies, Tmall held the biggest-ever 618 shopping festival. ► Huawei and Xiaomi were comfortably ahead of other Chinese vendors in the 618 festival in terms of smartphone and wearables sales.  ► Huawei showed an abundant strength in products and consumer coverage, outplaying Xiaomi and other vendors. ► Appliance maverick GREE triumphed through its CEO’s livestreaming stunts, bringing a potential threat to Huawei and Xiaomi’s IoT strategies. Tmall, an e-commerce platform operated by Alibaba Group (BABA:NYSE), once again led the 618 Shopping Festival, with a CNY 698.2 billion gross merchandise value (GMV). The first hour of June 18 witnessed a 100% Y-o-Y growth in transaction volume. Two engines drove the consumption craze. First, to boost the economy, Tmall, along with other leading e-commerce platforms such as JD.com (JD:NASDAQ) and Suning (002024:SZ), handed out shopping vouchers generously at a CNY 10 billion level. Second, more widely applied livestreaming promos for makeup, clothing and 3C (computer, communication, and consumer) electronics products, lifted the sales to an even greater volume. Some had anticipated a downturn caused by quarantine or people’s reluctance of going to crowded malls – rather the opposite came to pass. A currently shrinking electronics market was actively seeking its redemption during this shopping festival, however a more intense level of competition was waiting for all players. Apple (AAPL:NASDAQ), the world-leading electronics giant, joined the shopping festival on Tmall for the first time. Chinese electronics vendors such as Huawei and Xiaomi (01810:HKEX) didn’t want to be outdone as well, thus the marketing events stimulated people’s purchase desires with bare stops. For the full category sales, Huawei and Xiaomi achieved thrilling results, taking the first and second position among main Chinese electronics players in Tmall sales respectively and leaving the third far behind, with approximately CNY 1 billion extra sales. The sales of OPPO and vivo (OV) somehow stumbled this year, based on data from Tmall provided by iyiou.com, a sister publication of EqualOcean, as the two vendors did not release their official numbers for the shopping festival. It is likely that, no matter how polished one’s promotional statement is, it cannot make up for the downward slope in sales. Pushed by the pandemic, OVs had to shift their sales from offline to online, which required a bit more time for them to adjust. In terms of smartphones and smart wearables, the data reveals a cozy duopoly for Huawei and Xiaomi. For the smart wearables, other players such as Samsung, Huami and OPPO still have a chance of bouncing back to the top, since the wearable market in China still has a large group of new users compared with the smartphone market.  Though the 5G data and related applications have not yet shaped 5G smartphone as a necessity, the phones featured for this tech have already occupied the peak of new sales. Apparently, the demand is shaped by vendors’ tricky promotion on the new generation of communication technology. Huawei and Xiaomi somehow presented a subtle switch in terms of product layout. Xiaomi in 2020 changed the strategy of smartphones to a concentrated product route while Huawei seems to have a broader price coverage and target customer groups. Xiaomi’s Mi 10 and Redmi K30 are the only two specs that have taken most of the promotion resources. For Huawei, Y series, P series, Nova series and series under the Honor brand are all indulged by the company’s marketing department and the customers, covering unit prices from under CNY 1,000 to 7,500. Xiaomi’s overall production and sales capacity is dragging its performance behind Huawei, as it won the solid second position only by two specs.    Chinese brands did a fairly great job in terms of home appliances. The top 3 positions are all taken by Chinese vendors – GREE, Haier (600690:SZ) and Midea (000333:SZ) – and left a CNY 1 billion sales gap for the fourth brand, Siemens. GREE should credit the sales boost in this year’s 618 to the livestreaming hype. GREE’s CEO, Ms. Dong Mingzhu, has been actively practicing livestreaming sales since April this year. After a two-month phase of testing and improvement, CNY 17.8 billion of sales were achieved through her five 618 livestreaming events. The 618 sales of 17.8 billion in 2020 represent approximately 10% of GREE’s total revenue in 2019, marking a true breakthrough in the livestreaming era. Midea’s top managers followed GREE’s footsteps with a populist attendance in livestreaming activities. However early birds are the ones to enjoy the worm – and Midea does not seem to overachieve in online promotions. The strong branding still supported Midea and Haier with decent sales. The top 3 appliance vendors still showed a strong competitiveness, which brought potential threats to Huawei and Xiaomi’s IoT and smart home strategies. 

Alibaba and JD.com Hit Record-high Sales During the ‘618 Shopping Festival’

► Alibaba achieved CNY 698.2 billion sales on June 18; 3C and home appliances are the most popular categories. ► JD.com reached CNY 269.1 million sales, and more than 91% of orders are same-day deliveries or next-day deliveries conducted by JD Logistics. The annual ‘618 Shopping Festival’ from June 1 to June 18 came to an end, signaling China’s economic recovery. Alibaba and JD.com hit new record-high sales volumes of CNY 698.2 billion and CNY 269.1 billion, respectively.   Alibaba announced that the platform, local governments and merchants issued a total of CNY 14 billion coupons and subsidies during ‘618.’ Taobao’s small and medium-sized merchants received a total of 1 billion more orders compared to the same period last year, benefiting from Alibaba’s ‘Spring Thunder Plan’ which aims to support small and medium businesses.   On Tmall platform, one hour after the pre-sale, the transaction amount has reached five times over a year ago. Home appliances are one of the hottest product categories. Gree topped the list with 1.36 billion units sold, followed by Haier and Midea. Two overseas brands, Siemens and A.O. Smith squeezed in on the top 10 list, indicating Chinese brands have managed to gain mindshare in the domestic market. Smart TVs, air conditioners, gas stoves, water purifiers, and cooker hoods are customers’ favorites. For Gree, air conditioners are winning sales victories thanks to a high reputation. Washing machines, water heaters and refrigerators are the three best-selling home appliances in Haier. Midea is outstanding in small household appliances such as electric fans, kettles, vacuum cleaners and humidifiers.   As for JD.com, although sales were not as high as Alibaba, it increased by 33.6% compared to the previous year. JD.com said that the sales of 187 brands exceeded CNY 100 million. The sales of fresh agricultural products, health care medical products and kitchenware increased the fastest. Food and beverage, baby products, beauty and skincare were consumed most. Consumers preferred to spend more on mobile phones, household appliances, and computers, digital products in the shopping festival. The cities with the highest enthusiasm for consumption were Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.   Moreover, JD Logistics, with the advantage of self-operating, further has upgraded the ‘front warehouse’ and realized the ‘minute delivery.’ Urumqi’s first order took only 8 minutes and 21 seconds to complete the delivery. More than 91% of orders are same-day delivery or next-day deliveries, conducted by JD Logistics.

Alibaba-backed Qiniu Cloud Completes CNY 1 Billion Series F

Qiniu Cloud (七牛云), an independent cloud computing and data service provider, has raised CNY 1 billion in its Series F. The round saw participation from the China Structural Reform Fund, financial service supermarket BOCOM International and venture capital firm Hongzhao Fund. In 2017, the company received over CNY 1 billion in its Series E (in Chinese) from tech behemoth Alibaba (BABA:NYSE) and private equity player Yunfeng Fund. At present, more than 1 million corporate customers and developers, including some well-known enterprises, are using the company's cloud and data services.  Qiniu is planning to integrate the existing knowledge and industrial capabilities of its partner network to build a solid, multidimensional data ecosystem. As many traditional companies have opted for digital transformation, the data pools are getting boosted. Consequently, more firms are trying to leverage cloud services in their quest for higher industrial efficiency and innovation. To attract and serve more customers, cloud computing providers need to hire talents and invest in core equipment and related technologies. Relying on the Series F funds, Qiniu can improve their business, connecting the upstream and the downstream. China, which has become a prominent tech hub in the last decade, now presents multiple opportunities to the local cloud computing companies across a handful of industries.

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