Lei Jun's dagger and Dong Mingzhu's sword point towards the growth in home appliances.

For Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, omnichannel marketing targeting fan groups is a powerful weapon; for Gree Electric Appliances' leader Dong Mingzhu, self-operated channels and a vast network of distributors are a sharp sword. This year, Lei Jun's weapon and Dong Mingzhu's sword have both pointed towards the incremental market in the home appliance industry.

Over the years, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun and Gree Electric Appliances' leader Dong Mingzhu have been connected due to a 1 billion yuan bet, and later clashed and competed as Xiaomi made rapid breakthroughs in the air conditioning market.

Since entering 2025, both companies have become hot topics in the industry, with Xiaomi once again targeting the air conditioning market and focusing on central air conditioning business to rival Daikin, while Gree Electric Appliances has seen its specialty stores recruit new merchants and change their names to "Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home."

Whether it's Xiaomi choosing to benchmark against Daikin for its central air conditioning efforts and declaring a move towards high-end transformation in its air conditioning business, or Gree Electric sparking heated discussions by renaming its offline specialty stores to "Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home", from the perspective of the home appliance industry, these actions are all about "Xiang Zhuang dances his sword, with intent on Pei Gong" (an idiom meaning having an ulterior motive).

Xiaomi's move to benchmark against Daikin in the central air conditioning business is just a feint, and using Daikin to highlight Xiaomi's path to high-end transformation is also false. The essence is to "create a topic" to attract a wave of user traffic for Xiaomi's central air conditioning business, essentially just pre-selling a batch of products. After all, when it comes to central air conditioning, Daikin's users would not be interested in Xiaomi, and similarly, Xiaomi's users would hardly target Daikin. The difference between the two is not only that of "professionals" versus "laymen", but they are also like species from "two different eras".

However, in the air conditioning business, it is an indisputable fact that Xiaomi has achieved rapid large-scale shipment volumes and quickly obtained its "first pot of gold" in the air conditioning industry through OEM branding. Similarly, by using the air conditioning business as a breakthrough point, Xiaomi is rapidly delving into the home appliance industry and is expected to establish a strategic positioning of "automobiles, mobile phones, and home appliances" as the new trio within the Xiaomi Group. Its goals and ambitions are clear and grand.

In the next few years, Xiaomi should be the "cross-industry peer" that many professional enterprises in China's home appliance industry should pay the most attention to and care about. Not only are they facing the challenge of competing directly with Xiaomi for market share, but they also need to learn from and adopt Xiaomi's "user thinking" and "traffic marketing" strategies to enhance their capabilities and enrich their methods in managing users.

As a typical "marketing-driven" and "traffic-led" company, Xiaomi's "ambition" towards the home appliance industry is growing over time. The biggest reason for this is that in the past few years, through a "high cost-performance" product positioning and an "e-commerce light-asset" channel strategy, Xiaomi has captured the needs of a large number of young users and those downgrading their consumption, achieving precise capture in the mass consumer market with its air conditioning projects.

From the perspective of the home appliance industry, Xiaomi's rapid increase in the air conditioner market, relying solely on a single online channel, is neither accidental nor inevitable. On one hand, the shipment volume of the air conditioning industry reached new heights in the past 2 to 3 years, providing a stage for newcomers due to the expanded market space; on the other hand, the top echelon of the air conditioning industry has remained stable for a long time, leading to too much comfort in market strategies and operational inertia, lacking precise insight into and quick response to external market and consumption changes. Of course, the most important factor is the younger demographic of the main consumer groups, who enjoy trying new things, desire uniqueness, and are also facing consumption downgrades, needing products that are "good, cheap, and branded." This ultimately allowed Xiaomi to find its own "survival space" in the air conditioning industry, which was overlooked by professional air conditioner companies and unexpectedly seized by Xiaomi.

Recently, Xiaomi once again saw the scaled-up release of the central air conditioning market beyond household air conditioners, along with the standardization and maturation of installation, accessories, and other services. The younger generation of users is pursuing a new level of comfort in indoor air temperature regulation during home renovation. Seizing this opportunity, Xiaomi launched central air conditioning products again, announcing: Xiaomi's home appliances will also undergo a high-end transformation and hope to give the home appliance industry a bit of a shock. This, of course, is another wave of new traffic and marketing tactics.

Over the past 2 years, the air conditioning industry has been hit hard by Xiaomi's sudden surge in the market and its phased success. In the view of the home appliance industry, there are two aspects to this impact: First, in terms of marketing. As a typical marketing company, Xiaomi introduced the marketing strategies from the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, such as smartphones, into the air conditioning market, sparking a new trend of direct-to-consumer and influencer marketing, completely breaking away from the traditional methods of air conditioning companies, achieving success and winning target customers; Second, in terms of user perception. Although Xiaomi's air conditioners are produced through an OEM model, the product definition, feature packaging, and market positioning are still controlled by Xiaomi itself, providing a new choice for a group of young users who prefer novelty. In short, whether it's channels, marketing, products, or prices, none of these are the only means, but when combined, they become a new differentiated approach. Xiaomi's air conditioners are not cheap, but why do they have good sales? Air conditioning companies need to reflect on this.

It's unknown if Dong Mingzhu had already noticed Xiaomi's fan-based approach to its air conditioning business, but after entering 2025, Gree Electric Appliances once again initiated a new round of operational transformation and change. Recently, the intense debate over the renaming of "Gree Specialty Stores" to "Gree Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home" is a key part of this transformation. However, neither the people at Gree nor Dong Mingzhu expected that the renaming of their own channel specialty stores would spark such a huge controversy and discussion in society.

For Gree Electric Appliances, transitioning from being the king of air conditioner categories to now pursuing comprehensive expansion and development across multiple home appliance categories represents a situation of "heavy tasks, high pressure, and limited space." From the perspective of the home appliance industry, the original intention behind changing from Gree Specialty Stores to Gree Dong Mingzhu Home should be twofold: First, to reduce the perception that Gree is just about air conditioners, hoping that through Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home, it can break away from the single-category perception of Gree air conditioners and boost the market for Gree washing machines, Jinghong refrigerators, and Dazhong household appliances; Second, as an important breakthrough for Gree Electric Appliances to restructure its offline channel dealer groups, initiating a new round of Gree's self-operated channel recruitment projects. After all, selling air conditioners at Gree Specialty Stores is a thing of the past. In the future, customizing healthy living at Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home will be Gree's new business project, attracting more merchants to join and participate, and not limited to home appliance categories.

The key controversy sparked by the renaming of Gree specialty stores to Dong Mingzhu's Healthy Home lies in whether it is feasible to deeply tie Dong Mingzhu's personal name to the company's physical stores. In fact, over the past few years, Dong Mingzhu's stores have been frequently established in various locations, covering both online and offline channels. In the eyes of Gree, this is a natural progression, and it is also a round of operational transformation being carried out by peers such as Haier, Midea, and Hisense. This involves promoting the scenarization and experiential nature of offline physical stores, accelerating the shift from product sales to scenario-based sales, and facilitating the leap from a product-oriented mindset to a user-oriented one.

As Xiaomi, representing cross-sector players, begins to establish a foothold in the home appliance market, frequently securing orders, and as young consumers increasingly pursue diversity, quality, and personalized needs, if home appliance companies remain in their past comfort zones and inertia, failing to proactively adapt to changes in competition and consumer preferences, they will ultimately face elimination. This may be the original intention behind Gree launching Dong Mingzhu's Healthy Home. However, because Dong Mingzhu's influence is so significant, while it indirectly promotes the new round of channel recruitment projects being pushed by Gree in various regions, it also places Gree and Dong Mingzhu at the center of public opinion and scrutiny.

If traffic and fan marketing are the sword of Xiaomi's founder Lei Jun, then channels and loyal distributors are the knife of Gree Electric's leader Dong Mingzhu. Now, both companies' swords and knives are pointed at the home appliance industry: one for air conditioners, the other for all categories of home appliances; one as an important strategic tool, the other as a key battle for strategic transformation. Perhaps this will become one of the biggest highlights of China's home appliance market in 2025.