HONG KONG: Haier Electronics, the world’s biggest supplier of washing machines, plans to drive e-commerce sales in the countryside with improved delivery services this year amid fears of a further slowdown in the mainland’s home appliances industry.
The strategy will be implemented by the company’s Goodaymart Logistics operation, which will engage its network of resellers and franchisee stores across the mainland’s lower-tier cities, counties and villages.
“It is essential to strengthen the ‘last mile’ delivery services and onsite user experience in the third and fourth-tier markets,” Haier Electronics chairman Zhou Yunjie said in a Hong Kong regulatory filing yesterday.
The company, a subsidiary of Shanghai-traded, white goods global market leader Qingdao Haier, posted a 20 per cent jump in net profit last year to 2.45 billion yuan (HK$3.09 billion), from 2.04 billion yuan in 2013.
The gain was mostly attributed to its integrated channel services business, which included sales of third-party brands and logistics services for e-commerce, home appliances and furniture. The firm also sells water heaters, which are the top-sellers on the mainland.
Revenue grew 7.8 per cent to a record 67.13 billion yuan, up from 62.26 billion yuan the previous year. Zhou warned that the domestic home appliance sector’s growth would again slow down this year. He added, however, that “the proportion of the third-party logistics business will continue to grow rapidly in 2015”.
He said Goodaymart would help more Haier franchisee stores to go online, reduce inventory and become online-to-offline channels for e-commerce services providers and merchants.
Ricky Lai, a research analyst at Guotai Junan International, said Goodaymart was being developed to provide an open, online platform for freight transport providers, so they can integrate delivery capacity with service orders and retailers.
E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdings is poised to benefit from that strategy as logistics support for its Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com online retail sites improve in the countryside.
Alibaba bought a minority stake in Goodaymart for HK$1.86 billion in 2013.Despite its strong earnings, Haier shares fell to HK$19.70 in early trading before closing down 2.6 per cent to HK$19.98.
