Following the recent industry disputes, the home appliance market has entered its mid-year examination period. At the end of August, the "big three" home appliance companies released their half-year reports, subjecting their first-half performance to market scrutiny.

From the viral leadership at the beginning of the year to diversified acquisitions, Haier's every move has attracted attention. Recently, Haier Smart Home released its 2025 half-year report. From the data perspective, Haier Smart Home continued its trend of dual growth in revenue and profit. However, Haier Smart Home's profitability remains inadequate, and its domestic business growth lagged behind the overall market.

Notably, as domestic home appliance market competition intensifies, overseas markets became the highlight of Haier Smart Home's first-half business performance.

In today's increasingly fierce market environment, the home appliance industry faces unprecedented challenges. The track is more crowded than ever, brand pathways are more difficult, and diversification has become a consensus among players.

Haier's approach is quite open, and its steps are significant. In Haier's 2025 New Year message, Haier Group Chairman Zhou Yunjie proposed "building three major industrial ecosystems: smart living, big health, and digital economy."

Under this new strategy, Haier's benchmark companies shifted from traditional home appliances to technology ecosystem enterprises. In the first half of this year, in the automotive sector, Haier acquired Autohome and partnered with Great Wall Motors. In the big health sector, Haier's subsidiary Yikang Life implemented the "One Incaier" strategy.

However, the wider the track spread, the greater the risks. Recently, the Qingdao Bureau of the National Financial Regulatory Administration disclosed administrative penalty information showing that Haier Consumer Finance was fined 2.05 million yuan for issues including exaggerated marketing, improper debt collection, and misuse of some credit funds, setting the largest penalty record in the consumer finance industry in nearly three years.

2025 represents an important turning point for the home appliance industry, serving as both a reshuffling battle and a positioning battle. In the second half of the year, to run faster, Haier needs to seek stability in its main business while finding growth in new tracks.

**Domestic Growth Lags Market Average, Haier Smart Home's Profitability Remains Weak**

In the first half of this year, under policy stimulus, the home appliance market's trade-in programs unleashed consumer potential. Meanwhile, the market also faced new variables: Xiaomi's unexpected rise and consumers' pursuit of segmented demands all influenced the home appliance industry's growth logic.

Under this new round of competition, leading players' performance deserves attention.

On the evening of August 28, Haier Smart Home released its 2025 half-year report. The financial report showed that in the first half of 2025, Haier Smart Home achieved operating revenue of 156.494 billion yuan, up 10.2% year-over-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 12.033 billion yuan, up 15.6% year-over-year, slightly slower than the 16.26% growth rate in the first half of last year.

Against the backdrop of overall pressure on the home appliance industry, achieving dual growth in revenue and net profit, Haier Smart Home's performance was commendable.

Breaking down the financial report, premiumization was key to Haier Smart Home's revenue growth. For the high-end market, the Casarte brand maintained steady growth, with first-half revenue up over 20% year-over-year. According to GfK data, Casarte's core categories including refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners all ranked first in high-end market retail share.

In the high-end refrigerator market above 15,000 yuan, Casarte holds over 50% market share, while in washing machines, it dominates with a 90.4% share.

Meanwhile, targeting young consumers, the Leader brand focuses on personalized design and affordable pricing. In the first half of this year, Leader brand revenue grew 15% year-over-year. Popular products including the three-drum lazy washing machine achieved 100,000 unit deliveries.

While Haier Smart Home appears positive on the surface, deeper analysis of its business structure reveals some concerns.

By market segment, in the domestic market, Haier Smart Home's revenue grew 8.8% in the first half, lagging behind the overall home appliance market. According to AVC data, in the first half of this year, national home appliance retail sales (excluding 3C) totaled 453.7 billion yuan, up 9.2% year-over-year.

By category, air conditioning, as a new category for Haier's expansion in the home appliance market, saw revenue growth of 12.8% in the first half, with installation volume up over 50%. However, the air conditioning market is extremely competitive, with brands like Midea and Gree having cultivated the field for years, forming brand barriers and technical advantages. According to AVC data, in the first half of 2025, Haier air conditioning's 18.3% market share still has a significant gap compared to Gree and Midea.

Comparing horizontally with peers, Haier Smart Home's profitability is average. In the first half of 2025, Haier Smart Home's net profit margin was 7.7%, while Midea's net profit margin reached 10.36%, and Gree Electric's was 14.8%.

This is also related to the domestic home appliance market's low demand. Even though Haier occupies a position in the high-end market, consumers remain price-sensitive, and premiumization's effect on improving Haier's profitability is not obvious.

This means that optimizing cost structure, reducing expense ratios, and improving profitability represent another challenge facing Haier.

Notably, AVC data shows that in the first half of 2025, refrigerator market retail sales grew only 3.5% year-over-year, washing machine market retail sales grew 4.2% year-over-year, showing weak growth momentum compared to the overall home appliance market's 9.2% year-over-year growth.

Refrigerators and washing machines are Haier's traditional strength categories and core businesses. However, as market ceilings approach and home installation reaches saturation, how to discover new growth points in these two mature markets tests Haier.

**Outstanding Overseas Business Performance, North American Market Under Continued Pressure**

In the context of gradual saturation and weak growth in the domestic home appliance market, overseas markets have become a new blue ocean for home appliance companies seeking breakthroughs.

In the first half of 2025, Haier Smart Home's overseas main business revenue reached 79.1 billion yuan, up 11.66% year-over-year, accounting for over 50% of the company's total revenue and becoming an important engine for Haier Smart Home's performance growth.

Overseas, Haier has essentially built another "Haier." In the first half, overseas growth showed diversified regional development trends. Among them, emerging markets grew rapidly, becoming an important force driving overseas performance growth.

Regions like South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Middle East Africa, with their large population bases and rapidly developing economies, have enormous home appliance market potential, bringing significant revenue to Haier Smart Home: 8.666 billion yuan, 4.13 billion yuan, and 2.439 billion yuan respectively.

Behind this lies Haier's research and layout for localized consumer demands in emerging markets. For example, addressing Indian households' concerns about energy consumption and improved needs for vegetarian food cold storage, Haier launched variable-temperature French door refrigerators that are energy-efficient while providing 83% space for refrigeration.

In the Egyptian market, targeting local high-temperature climate and high electricity costs, Haier launched R32 single-cooling inverter air conditioners.

On the other hand, in the mature developed European market, where home appliance penetration is high and market competition fierce, Haier thoroughly reformed its organization and supply chain models, improving product iteration speed and operational efficiency. The results of this transformation were reflected in the first half of this year, with Haier's European market growing 24.07%.

As a manufacturing powerhouse, leveraging supply chain and labor advantages, home appliances were among the first industries to embark on globalization. In 1986, the State Council issued the "Notice on Encouraging Export Commodity Production and Expanding Export Foreign Exchange Earnings," prompting many Chinese companies, including home appliances, to venture overseas.

Haier was among them. Unlike many brands that entered markets through OEM manufacturing, Hailer not only refused acquisition but chose high-investment approaches like acquiring international brands and establishing local factories, laying the foundation for Haier's current overseas market position.

With experience, brands, and channels, Haier's overseas expansion seems smooth sailing, but one region deserves attention—North America. This is a region where Haier made heavy bets for overseas expansion. When initially entering North America, Haier determined a localization strategy, establishing factories, design, and marketing locally.

This determined that for a long time, North America was Haier's overseas foundation, supporting half of Haier's overseas revenue. Currently, Haier's products in North America cover full categories including refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, water heaters, and kitchen appliances.

However, starting last year, affected by geopolitical factors, Haier Smart Home's performance in the North American market began to weaken. Haier Smart Home mentioned in its half-year report that the North American home appliance industry continues under pressure, with weak demand due to high interest rates, high inflation, and real estate downturn.

From revenue perspective, outstanding overseas growth mainly came from emerging markets. Haier Smart Home didn't even disclose specific revenue scale for North America. From growth rate perspective, Haier's growth rate in the North American market was significantly lower than emerging markets. While this reflects overall industry conditions, Haier cannot afford to be complacent.

Under the overall environment of weak market demand, Haier faces certain uncertainties in future growth space. How to break through difficulties in the North American market and improve market share and profitability is a problem Haier needs to consider and solve.

**On the Diversification Path, Haier Faces Both Opportunities and Challenges**

In 2018, Haier founder Zhang Ruimin led Haier to embark on an ecosystem brand strategy. Haier's ambitions have long extended beyond the home appliance track, setting sights on broader sectors.

After Zhou Yunjie took over Haier's reins in 2021, he intended to carry the Haier ecosystem to its conclusion. Zhou Yunjie has repeatedly stated in public that future competition will not be between enterprises but dialogue between ecosystems.

Beyond building ecosystems, more importantly, this seeks more growth-potential tracks for Haier. Over these years, Zhou Yunjie's actions in expanding Haier's ecosystem can be described as aggressive.

In February this year, within less than five days, Haier successively announced acquisitions of Autohome and Step Electric. Last June, Haier Group spent 12.5 billion yuan to acquire 20% of Shanghai RAAS, a leading blood products company, becoming its largest shareholder.

In July, Zhou Yunjie led a team to Chongqing to sign agreements with Changan Automobile for comprehensive cooperation across multiple fields. Subsequently, Zhou Yunjie posted on social media: "Haier's strategic cooperation with Changan will achieve comprehensive upgrades. We will leverage our respective deep industrial foundations to accelerate comprehensive and in-depth strategic cooperation."

Simultaneously, to improve the "car-home ecosystem," Haier's Sanyibird brand released the UhomeCar open platform for car-home connectivity, achieving "home management from car, car control from home" integration.

A clear trend is that based on Haier's long-term accumulation in IoT, Haier has successively entered automotive, smart home, big health and other fields, launching the COSMOPlat industrial internet platform, building an ecosystem under the "Inverted Triangle" model.

Regardless of the track, the goal is consistent: through layout in high-growth tracks, raise Haier's ceiling.

Ecosystem expansion is the first step; integration and synergy are more critical. Fields like robotics, automotive, and big health are far removed from Haier's traditional home appliance business, requiring not only substantial financial investment but also challenging management's business synergy and cultural integration capabilities.

More critically, after acquisitions, ensuring new business stability is essential, otherwise it may affect the main brand's market reputation.

In July, two consecutive penalties brought Hailer Consumer Finance into focus. On July 4, a public notice from the People's Bank of China Qingdao Branch showed that due to Haier Consumer Finance "violating credit information collection, provision, inquiry and related management regulations," it received a warning and 105,000 yuan fine.

More than 20 days later, Haier Consumer Finance was again fined 2.05 million yuan for exaggerated marketing, improper debt collection, and misuse of some credit funds.

Haier Consumer Finance stated: "This penalty targets inspection content from before 2021. The company takes it seriously, accepts the penalty sincerely, and has completed rectification."

Actually, since opening in 2014, Haier Consumer Finance, leveraging Haier's offline home appliance consumption scenarios and online cash loans, has achieved considerable performance. According to Haier Consumer Finance annual report data, from 2022 to 2024, net operating revenue was 1.71 billion yuan, 2.489 billion yuan, and 3.168 billion yuan respectively.

In 2024 alone, Haier Consumer Finance's revenue and net profit growth rates both exceeded 20%. Perhaps due to rapid business development, judicial cases involving Haier Consumer Finance are also accumulating. According to Tianyancha, currently Haier Consumer Finance is involved in 100,600 judicial cases, with over 90% as plaintiff.

China Chengxin International pointed out in Haier Consumer Finance's 2025 tracking rating report that while the company has positive factors like strong shareholder support, high self-operated business proportion, rapid business scale growth, and continuously improving profitability, domestic economic recovery falls short of expectations, and the company's asset quality faces certain challenges.

These all indicate that while Haier Consumer Finance seeks growth, it must guard against compliance growing pains. Repeated rectifications are not a long-term solution.

The home appliance industry is experiencing profound transformation, bringing new opportunities alongside new challenges. For Haier, while leading its home appliance business to seek transformation and breakthroughs in the red ocean, how to effectively integrate acquired assets and achieve synergistic development is key to Haier's growth pursuit in the second half.