HAIER GROUP MARKETING

Haier Group marketing

Haier Group marketing

Introduction

Haier Group (Haier), a government owned company, manufactures household appliances and electronic products in over 15,100 different specifications under 96 categories. Haier products are sold in over 100 countries around the globe. Haier Group primarily operates in Asia, Europe, Oceania and North America. The company is headquartered in Shandong, China and employs about 50,000 people.

In the following analysis, a brief discussion of the appliance and small electric industry will take place followed by recommendations for Haier to raise brand awareness and increase market share. In particular, there will be discussion of: raising brand awareness through innovation and superior customer service, a plan to exchange logistics information with other industry players, and to increase service to the developing nation in rural China (Haier's home country).

In order for Haier to accomplish its goals of increasing brand awareness and expanding its market share, the company must be aware of its areas of strengths but more importantly its areas of weaknesses as well as the business environment in which it runs. In studying the Porter model, Haier will accomplish this and will therefore be more equipped to make decisions most likely to help the company reach its goals.

Haier's background

Haier is a super-large Chinese enterprise founded in 1984 that started out as the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory. Haier is the largest refrigerator manufacturer in China. Haier has actively engaged in technical innovation, capital operations and multinational expansion. From 1998, Haier began to become a multinational company with the aim of building an international brand name. Haier now has 62 distributors and more than 30,000 outlets around the world. The company's target is to enter the top 500 list of Fortune magazine.

Haier's customer perception

Haier always concentrates refrigerator industry as its main market segmentation even though Haier has involved many new industries such as mobile phone. Market segmentation is "The identification of individuals or organizations with similar characteristics that have significant implications for the determination of marketing strategy" (Jobber, D 2001 page 185). There are huge demands in refrigerator market due to more new buyers and more consumers upgrading their old ones.

Haier chose the US as its target market because of two main reasons. The US is the largest refrigerator consuming market of 90 million units every year and the US market is the most competitive market in the world. So, it is the best way to advertise Haier's refrigerators if Haier has excellent performance in American market. It will pull Haier' refrigerators sales volume in other countries if Haier can make success in the US. It is the most efficient channel for Haier to reach its goal of establishing world brand name.

The US refrigerator market is maturity market and there existed many huge refrigerator manufactures such as GE and Whirlpool. Haier positioned itself as a newcomer and learner and hoped to become list 5 producers in 5 years. Haier differentiated its products from others relying on high quality and low price and good after sale ...