Hello, welcome to Roundtable, where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzled in China and beyond.
I'm Yuhong Lin. Thousands of people from around the world have flocked to Guangzhou, where the 136th Canton Fair is now in full swing.
Imagine halls filled with cutting -edge tech, innovative household appliances and green energy solutions, a space buzzing with energy and endless business opportunities.
Besides, behind every exhibition booth, there are stories of ambition, challenges, and some unexpected surprises.
Today, we'll take you inside one of China's largest trade fairs and explore how innovation is driving the future of global exports.
For this episode, I'm joined by Yushen and Steve Hatherly.
Now grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
Welcome to the 136th Canton Fair, where over 1 .5 million square meters are buzzing with innovation, from sleek household appliances to futuristic energy tech.
Among the star performers, China's home appliance sector, which has posted impressive double -digit growth this year.
With thousands of buyers flocking from around the world, the Canton Fair offers more than just trade – it's a window into the future of global commerce and sustainability.
But what's behind the booming exports and how are companies navigating the challenges of today's, you know, really cool economy?
Before talking all about that, let's take a look at the fair itself, the Canton Fair or the China Import and Export Fair.
Yes, Honglin, so the 136th Session of the China Import and Export Fair, popularly known as the Canton Fair, is held in the city of Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province between October the 15th and November the 4th this year.
So I was learning from its official website that the fair was first launched in 1957 and has been maintaining its tradition of being held every spring and autumn as one of the most iconic international trading events with the longest history here in China.
So there's two per year, right?
One in the spring, one in the fall?
Yes. And that's why we have the 136th Session, even though it only started in 1957.
There are two per year.
Yes. And as an important channel for China's foreign trade and a window for China's opening -up policy, this year's Canton Fair includes 55 exhibition areas covering 1 .55 million square meters and it's attended by over 30 ,000 enterprises from China and abroad.
It's unbelievably big.
I was watching a video yesterday from someone who was there reporting from the spring session and I couldn't get over, and he, the reporter, couldn't get over how massive this was and is now for the fall session and how many people are there, how many businesses are represented and just how many products
are there on display.
They have everything, literally everything.
In the video, I was watching one booth that was selling the, the setup had the handlebars and like the front of a motorcycle.
They weren't selling motorcycles.
They were selling the technology that sits at the front of a motorcycle, like the GPS screen and all things like that.
So that was their booth.
That's what they were selling.
And that's why he was explaining when I say everything, I mean literally everything.
They have it all there.
Yes. And we see a total of 125 ,000 overseas buyers and they have registered and they are coming and among them, about 76 % are from countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, while around 12 % are from North America and Europe.
And with a year, with a history that long, we get to see that the fair is like growing little by little from the very beginning, maybe these sectors are open to business buyers and suppliers.
They want to do, you know, make new friends and see what are some business partners they can have on those affairs and making, you know, some business.
And later on it for a lot of different, uh, attendance to this fair, this place where this fair started to be a must do thing in their, in their yearly routine, they go to the places to meet their old friends and also to see some new friends and to use the opportunity to launch the latest model of their
product to their, um, customers.
Yeah. Or to just visit and see what's available even, even outside of their own business.
I would think this has got to be a tourist attraction as well, simply because of the scale of this fair.
Right. And I think the successful hosting of all of these fairs and expos also marks that, you know, China's foreign trade is continuously growing in the past few years.
And this is according to statistics from general administration of customs that China's foreign trade grew 5 .3 % year on year to 32 .6 sorry, 32 .33 trillion Yuan, which equals 4 .57 trillion us dollars in the first three quarters with this exports increasing 6 .2 % on the yearly basis as well.
And I think on top of that, there is one particular sector.
That's the home appliance sector.
That's very popular according to my knowledge from the, um, the China import and export fair website that it's being very popular among both the, you know, buyers from China and overseas as well.
Right. Yeah. Double digit growth among key export products in the first eight months of 2024 with a year on year increase of 14 .7%, obviously very successful there.
The annual growth rate of China's household appliances export was just 3 .8 % in 2023 year on year.
That's a really, really significant jump.
So obviously a testament to how that market is doing, but also a testament to the quality of the products that are being exported as well.
Yes. When it comes to household appliances, you think about television, you think about dishwasher, you think about these relatively traditional type of little machines, relatively little in your house that makes your life feels easier and better and happier.
And guess what? They are experiencing a evolution.
They are changing to the stuff that you cannot imagine already exists in the world.
I have heard that some of the machines, I know there's floor sweepers.
You can use tiny little robot, like they're not robot, like they're plate like little robots that you invite to your house.
They're quite smart.
The ones that I bought are already quite smart.
They can scan the area of your house and go to different rooms.
They can design a route where they go and clean things.
And after a while they would send you a text message telling you, I have finished cleaning or you haven't been using me for quite a while.
How's your house? It's too clean.
Something like that.
A little passive aggressiveness from your robot vacuum cleaner.
I was like, are you accusing me of being a lousy owner of the house?
But guess what? These machines are getting smarter and smarter.
And here is one other example to testify on that.
So just last Sunday, I installed the very first laundry machine for underwears.
Specifically for underwear?
Specifically for underwears and just tiny toys for babies or, I don't know, napkins for children and also for - Isn't that just a small washing machine?
Exactly. It's about the size of a mini, say, refrigerator.
And it's very heavy, by the way.
But it's very tiny to fit into just a corner in your bathroom or anywhere you could possibly put your washing machine and it's featured with the dryer's mode.
So you can just wash it, wash your underwear, your bra, your toys for the kids, napkins for the children, whatever.
Just stuff it all inside and it will wash it and then it will dry it for you within the timeframe of two to three hours.
Oh, it's a washer and dryer in the same machine.
Yeah, it's a combo of both.
And it even features an app on your phone that you can schedule when you want it done based on the automatic program and it will calculate the time it needs.
It will just set it for you even though you're not at home personally.
And I'm telling you, it's a life changer.
Really, that's what technologies are for.
Yeah, it's true. And when it comes to home appliances, we love anything that can make our life easier in the house, right?
You know, and you were talking about those traditional appliances, including things like washing machines, vacuum cleaners, microwaves, electric fans, LCD TVs.
Those from China reached 409 billion yuan plus in the first seven months of the year.
That's a year on year increase of 18 .1 percent, 11 .4 percent higher than the overall export growth rate of the country.
It's really quite impressive, actually.
The home appliance export market has seen positive year on year growth for 18 consecutive months from March 2023 to August 2024.
People are loving it.
Eighteen months in a row.
That's really impressive, isn't it?
Yeah, and if you think about the kind of home appliances we can actually get from the Chinese market, it's kind of understandable.
The upgrade or the kind of evolution that is happening for different versions of the same machine actually happens really fast beyond your imagination, making you want to buy the latest version.
We've already talked about the home sweeping floor, sweeping kind of little robot.
Actually, there are other ones that can steam your floor and not only sweep it, but also kind of like wash it.
Oh, yeah. That's a new feature for those little robot vacuum cleaners.
One that I was looking at, I searched the bed.
I had a really great morning, by the way.
I was just on the Internet searching like the coolest tech home appliances.
And these robot vacuum cleaners, I'm kind of obsessed with them because I don't have one yet in my house.
I hope to one day. But that's my bad habit.
I always look at the best of the best of the best because I want to know what tech is available.
These robot vacuum cleaners now, not all of them because on the market you can find cheaper versions that don't do certain things.
But the one that I searched, it has the function of mopping as well as sweeping.
And you can get the version where you empty the water tank yourself because if it's a mop it uses water, right?
You can do that yourself about once a week.
You can change the dirt bag or the dirt receptacle a receptacle about once a week.
But there's another version.
If you hook it up in your house to an area that is close to your home plumbing, so it attaches to the home plumbing, it empties the dirty water and brings in fresh water for itself.
Wait a minute. So you don't do anything.
I don't do anything.
The only thing you have to do is empty the dirt receptacle maybe once a week or so.
Wow. Everything else it does by itself.
It's like a mob that cleans itself that I do not have to attend at all.
It's amazing, isn't it?
See, this is why these kind of household appliances are getting really more and more popular in all the markets, not only the Chinese domestic markets, but also overseas markets.
And if you take a look at the supply side, actually, the China's home appliance industry has a complete industrial chain, strong manufacturing capabilities and, you know, a cost advantages because of its industrial, complete industrial chain.
And its products have high cost effectiveness if you buy a machine like that, like I did around 10 years ago.
I've been using it for almost 10 years, maybe seven, eight years.
Yes. The same machine for seven or eight years.
Yes, yes, yes. Oh, that's impressive in itself that you've been able to keep the same machine for that long and it's still working well.
Yes. And if you're not like me, if you want the latest version, actually fast innovation upgrading and optimization, upgrading speed and strong competitiveness in the global market.
Also helps the Chinese home appliances industry doing well in overseas market as well.
Yeah. Popular in overseas markets.
Korea is an example.
And again, robot vacuum cleaners.
Chinese robot vacuum cleaners are really, really popular in South Korea.
Yeah. Korean families, they have all of them, it seems.
Those ones from China take up 80 percent of the market in Korea, which is really impressive.
But I was reading too from a domestic media outlet that China is such a big country, right?
And the competition within China is quite high.
So it's really helped out these domestic appliance makers having so much competition within the country itself that helps here in China, but it also helps overseas too.
It just makes everybody try to be better and push forward all the time.
And speaking of competition, there is like benefits and impact for both the smaller companies and also the bigger and more major brands in China as well.
So for smaller companies, they're benefiting from the very overseas markets.
So here's one example.
So Mr. Chen Dehuan, who is a manager in a brand department and a small home appliance maker in Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang Province.
And he told the media that the company's exports increased by 23 percent in the first half of this year, and especially the overseas orders of their factory have already been scheduled till the end of the year.
So their company, well, they mainly target the European and the U .S.
markets. And besides domestic exhibitions and fair like the ongoing one we just mentioned, they also attend over 10 exhibitions abroad since earlier this year as well.
And other examples include smaller companies that's joining not only the domestic market but also the overseas market.
And also building their factories outside of China and getting a lot of profit as well.
And I think that's just showing that the competition, let's just call it competition.
And the general market is becoming more fair, not only for the bigger ones, but also for smaller companies as well.
And that is the good thing we all want to see.
Besides attending different fairs and exhibitions, showcasing their product.
Another thing these companies, big and small, are doing is to do some short videos and put them on social media platforms to showcase their product.
Yeah, Chinese small appliances have been pretty popular on TikTok recently.
In the European and American section, there's one particular brand that shares a different parent company and they have sales, stable monthly sales, over 10 ,000 ice cream machines.
Now when you think TikTok, you wouldn't think that ice cream machine videos would be the hot ticket item, but apparently it is and there are over 40 ,000 videos under related topics.
Yeah. And most of those are shared by users and some have over a million likes.
And there's an air fryer company that sold 1 million units in the past month with live streaming sales taking up 76 percent of their total sales.
Again, to the point of, you know, social media and home appliances, they don't seem to go together naturally, do they?
But these companies are really, really smart because they know that that's where people are seeing potential advertisements these days.
And it's a great opportunity to show the product, show how it works, show how good it is.
And I think it's pretty, pretty genius.
You know, there's a really, really niche type of short videos now on Chinese social media that is for the bloggers or vloggers.
They go to overseas websites and figure out what are the most popular household appliances that's been exported from China to overseas markets that does not acquire an area in the domestic market.
And then they feature those small home appliances and they tell you how to get them and where to get them in China to the Chinese consumers.
So this is like a it's not a one way street.
It's a one way, two way, three way, double way.
So it's a web. It's a web of a spider.
Now it absolutely is.
Remember, we did there was an episode of Roundtable that we did where we were talking about A .I.
in the food industry.
And yeah, of course, it's represented in restaurants.
But one of the examples we gave was where supermarkets were using A .I.
to follow the hottest trends on social media outlets to come up with new foods for their supermarkets.
So people are taking advantage of what's available.
Yes. And on top of household appliances, there are other technologies and other products showcased in the Canton Fair and people are enjoying them quite so much as well.
For instance, well, when it comes to different types of new product, new trend, apparently suppliers and buyers are also learning the new trend and doing their research into what the markets really like nowadays.
What are some new feature I should add to my product as well?
For example, when I was looking at it, I figured that at just one booth, several headphones were designed for different audiences and different purposes.
Of course, you need a headset when you are running, when you're cycling.
Apparently, there are specific ones, wearable headphones designed for tennis, marathon, hiking enthusiasts and just different type of people.
And with an integrated cap that provides some protection, you have a cap and headset.
Additionally, the behind -the -neck headphones designed for night runners and cyclists feature a light strip with three models to enhance visibility and safety.
Yeah. The first cyclists, right, because bicycles or, yeah, runners too.
Runners will wear clothing that's reflective.
Yes. Sometimes sneakers are reflective at the back.
Bicycles have the lights at the back, but I never thought about putting a light strip at the back of a headphone, said it's just an extra layer of security.
Yeah. So there apparently one very obvious trend for this year's, well, market is that people want different features for very specific scenarios and suppliers are doing that, are trying to add more feature or integrate more feature to fit that one scenario.
I really like the point you just said, Hongling, because now the supply chain, they're observing their customers and finding out who they're targeting by maybe putting advertisements on the right platforms, such as TikTok for an ice cream machine.
That's super nice, a kumble.
And in this case, I was spotting on the Canton Fair website and nowadays they're catering to the emerging pet economy here in China and all over the world as well.
And one really niche, I wouldn't say it's so niche, but a very cool product that I spot.
It's a kumble of pet feeder and water fountain for pet dogs of a bigger size.
So the sales director, very specific.
Oh, yeah. And they have a good reason to be so specific like they are right now.
So according to the sales director of this company that's producing these products, I just introduced that they they've observed and received comments that the largest dog foods on the market has a diameter of 20 millimeters.
So they get stuck. Yeah, they're easily getting stuck in the normal sized feeder feeding machines and which costs like jamming or fail for the dogs to get their food, especially when the owners are not at home.
So this company came up with the idea of enlarging a bit for the tube and making it easier for larger dog food to drop onto the bowl.
So this is what this kumble of pet feeder and water fountain is coming from.
I like the idea that they're really considering all the different needs of different groups.
Yeah, I used to have one of those automatic dog feeders for my dog and she figured out how to open the machine, open the little flap that lets the food out.
And when she started gaining weight, I knew something was up and I caught her doing it one day.
I didn't even get angry.
How could you get angry?
That's just genius.
That's so cute. One of the one of the trends in the kitchen industry is about multifunction machines.
There are so many different machines for everything in the kitchen these days, and it takes up a lot of space.
So what consumers are looking for are machines that can do multiple things.
And I found oh, my goodness, I think I need this thing, although it's really, really expensive.
This thing looks like a blender, but it's so much more than that.
It chops, it cooks, it crushes, it whips, it steams, it blends, it needs dough, it sautés, it slow cooks, it sous vide, it's a cooking robot.
It's a chef. They call it a robot chef and it sits on your counter and it has programmed recipes inside it.
Or you can add a key to the side of the machine and it reads what's inside the key and there's a recipe in there.
And then the machine through a touch screen, through a video display, tells you what to do step by step by step.
I watched that robot machine make risotto by telling the person who was operating the machine who was not a chef at all.
OK, now add this much butter, add this much white wine, add this much rice step by step by step, the whole process through, and it cooked a perfect risotto.
That's actually genius in the sense that we all say, ah, I want the taste of my mom, I want the taste of my grandmom, I want the recipe.
But if you're someone who does not know how to cook using this machine, you can replicate the taste of the exact same dish over and over again.
And even if one day you do not remember how to do that, the machine does it for you.
And it's going to be perfect every time.
It's going to be perfect every time, it's standardized.
And not only are suppliers and the companies making these machines super useful, they're also quite beautiful.
They're quite nice.
Aesthetically, you know, the design looks good.
Sometimes it's a futuristic look.
Sometimes it's the look of a nostalgia kind of red with a porcelain kind of surface.
But you see in a lot of those booths, actually, the design is for the entire scenario, entire kitchen.
They provide you with entire kitchen instead of just one machine, which is also quite important.
And we get to see that.
For me, I believe the future is quite bright and filled with exciting possibilities as businesses forge new partnerships and consumers embrace new technologies.
It's clear that innovation is paving the way for a more connected and sustainable world.
The content fair isn't just about showcasing what's new, it's about finding practical solutions to the challenges of today and tomorrow with technologies that promote sustainability and products designed for efficiency.
This year's event offers a roadmap for businesses and consumers alike.
The future is here and it looks pretty smart.
