Chinese consumers tend to buy foreign brands when they buy new "technology" products, and air purifiers are no exception. According to the retail volume data of China yikang market, from January to may this year, international brands accounted for 81.99% of the sales of domestic air purifiers, up 1.54% from the same period last year. The top five brands in sales were philips, panasonic (7.24, 0.00, 0.00%), sharp, yadu and whirlpool. The selling price of foreign brand products is generally higher than that of domestic brands.

But an investigation by the 21st century business herald found that while some manufacturers have tried their best to avoid the mark of being made in China, these foreign brands are almost always manufactured or contracted in China. On the other hand, the phenomenon of "fake foreign brands" is very serious. Some so-called "foreign brands" are actually completely fake products, many of which are produced cheaply in some "black factories".

Song guangsheng, director of the national indoor environment and indoor environmental protection product quality supervision and inspection center, pointed out to the 21st century business herald: "whether the product has a foreign name with or without relations with foreign countries, is actually a copy, paste or find someone to work for, the quality is not uniform but sell hundreds or even thousands of yuan.

Ambiguous "domestic OEM"

According to China yikang monitoring data, the average unit price of air purifiers was 2,653 yuan in 2012 and 2,913 yuan in 2013, up about 10%. Among them, the high-end price segment above 3,000 yuan presents a general upward trend, and the unit price of products above 5,000 yuan in 2013 increased by 3% compared with 2012.

Foreign brands are the main force of high-end products, and its unit price and domestic brands clearly open a distance. In fact, most of these foreign brands are produced or OEM in China, and most of the raw materials purchased are from domestic suppliers.

According to reporter understanding, the 21st century economy in the currently popular foreign brand, panasonic air purifiers factory in ronggui, shunde sharp's empty net machine production is in Shanghai, and daikin air net by gree foundry, philips and mid-range air purifier production in zhuhai, some high-end models are from South Korea COWAY company contract.

Origin and OEM itself is not the decisive factor of product quality, in the daily sales and publicity, these information is often foreign brands deliberately diluted, and even some enterprises hope to produce a "original import" of "beautiful misunderstanding". Whether to find COWAY foundry, philips in response to the 21st century economic report said only, "according to the state for the product identification marks of relevant laws and regulations, philips in product packaging, instruction manual and nameplate indicating the product origin, such as philips air purifier origin include South Korea, Germany and China."

Gree insiders confirmed to 21st century business herald that in addition to air purifiers, gree has been doing contract manufacturing for daikin's air conditioning products.

In addition, the high price of foreign brands is not the same as high quality. At the end of last year, the Shanghai municipal bureau of quality and technical supervision conducted spot checks on air purifiers. Among the 20 batches of products inspected, 7 batches were not labeled as applicable areas, including emmett, sharp, panasonic, lake, gree and other brands; The measured value of 9 batches of samples did not reach the nominal applicable area, including philips, adu, daikin and other brands.

"The industrial design of foreign brands is relatively human, but the actual purification function is basically the same," said an air purifier engineer, who declined to be named.

"Small enterprise OEM" with low threshold

The OEM of large enterprises, although the foreign brand has been discounted, but still has a certain level. Mixed small business OEM products, the entire industry in the "brutal growth" state.

The pearl river delta and Yangtze river delta, where the home appliance industry chain is complete, are also rich places for air purifiers. In the industry known as the "home appliances capital" in shunde, guangdong, is a single ronggui town has large and small nearly 24 industrial parks. Reporter of report of 21 centuries economy discovers, local besides panasonic, haier, hisense, kelon, tyco, galanz wait for well-known home appliance enterprise to build a factory besides, still have countless small and medium-sized home appliance and relevant form a complete set enterprise.

Yao feng (not his real name) is the head of a local company that makes small household appliances, such as food waste processors and fruit and vegetable beauty machines, and started making air purifiers last year. He told 21st century business herald that in shunde, there are so many companies like him that have "gone out on the road". "even some people who don't even have a factory do this [air purifier]. As long as someone is willing to OEM, change the brand, packaging, directly affixed to the line.

The engineer told the 21st century business herald that building an air purifier usually involves four processes: material procurement, incoming material inspection, product assembly and finished product inspection. And the main parts of the purifier motor, circuit board, filter, plastic parts can be purchased, so the production threshold is not high.

"Take the filter as an example. The cheapest one is only thirty or fifty yuan, and the most expensive one is only two or three hundred yuan. Although it all looks the same to the naked eye, different materials have different purification effects." He said that currently on the market the most popular PP material filter, a single purification efficiency of about 95%, followed by the direct paper filter, purification efficiency in the lower than 90%. Fiberglass filters are the most expensive, but their single-pass purification efficiency can go up to 99.97%.

A reporter from the 21st century business herald found in a search on taobao that it was not difficult to buy the filters suitable for air purifiers. As long as the corresponding model is provided, these filter suppliers can be processed according to the requirements. The price is related to the material and size of the filter, and the lowest price is only a few yuan.

However, the effectiveness of this cheap filter is not guaranteed. Yao told 21st century business herald that the OEM can do all the work for the filter, motor, parts and shell design.

"Many of those looking for OEM are manufacturers of upstream filters or e-commerce. When they see that the air purifiers are selling well and the profits are high in the past two years, they will do it with the mentality of making money and leaving." Yao Feng said.

"False foreign brand" flood

At the same time, "fake foreign brands" also emerged and flooded the market with the help of network distribution channels.

"Some companies will also register a trademark or brand abroad on purpose, but most will simply take a foreign name." Yao Feng said. It is understood that the CCTV had been exposed before the air purifier fake foreign brand "connery", is in foshan in the "black processing plant" "indigenous" manufacturing out.

Song guangsheng thinks, these empty net product are about the same in technology actually, but a lot of product can pack oneself "foreign brand", use network, electronic commerce to wait to undertake propaganda, raise price at a time 10 times even more, earn huge profit.

Convenient logistics distribution, no need for after-sales installation, air purification products are very suitable for network distribution channels. According to the monitoring data of zhongyikang, in the first 18 weeks of this year, there were as many as 1062 brands and models sold on the online sub-platforms of air purifiers. The above mentioned "connery" brand is to make use of the openness of the network platform to carry out a series of false publicity for its "German" false foreign identity.

Some of the later so-called "certification", in fact, is money to buy "icing on the cake". "The more certifications, the more consumers buy it." "As long as willing to spend money, there are ways to get all kinds of certification," yao said. And after these multifarious authentication is put on the net, become the most effective method that holiday foreign brand promotes performance.

A reporter from the 21st century business herald found that most of the air purifiers sold on taobao mall on July 1 did not have the information of their origin. In addition to all colors equipped with English name, many products are in the web page propaganda a large number of use of foreign models, foreign background and other "foreign elements", some even affixed to the certificate of foreign unknown certification agencies, the price of the product can reach more than 1000 yuan.