(Yicai Global) Nov. 5 -- China’s exports of small electric kitchen devices, health, environmental protection and major food and cleaning appliances such as fridges and washing machines have risen exponentially as more people shelter and work at home as Covid-19 rages. Makers of these products in China’s southern Pearl River Delta have thus reaped quite a windfall.

The cargo-loading area for cross-border freight vehicles of Guangdong Xinbao Electrical Appliances Holdings, a Chinese small household electric device maker in the famous home appliance hub of Foshan, was jammed with containers and trailers on Nov. 3. Its warehouses overflowed with goods awaiting export. Some lay stacked outside and over 10 component suppliers’ trucks lined up outside its coffee machine plant to discharge cargoes.

“Our overseas orders gradually grew in the first three quarters, after an annual 8 percent drop in the first quarter, [we had] a yearly 25 percent rise in the second and more than 40 percent jump from July to September … and orders in the fourth quarter still suffice,” Chen Jingshan, Guangdong Xinbao Electrical Appliances board secretary, told Yicai Global.

The company’s backlog of small appliance export orders will stretch into April. They have ballooned for Western-style small kitchen devices like coffee machines and mixers. Toasters, air purifiers and vacuum cleaners are also selling like hotcakes, Zhang Yifei, director of marketing and management of Xinbao’s overseas business, noted to Yicai Global, adding Xinbao is unable to meet demand even after rejigging and expanding production and has farmed out some export orders to other plants.

Capacity at Chinese appliance maker Galanz’s refrigerator plant in an industrial park in nearby Zhongshan has doubled this year but still falls short, Shao Guoshan, who controls quality there, told Yicai Global, adding delivery of any new order now takes three months. The facility plans to lift output by half in the coming year.

Brand Building

In a departure from Xinbao’s original equipment manufacturer model, Galanz is now evolving to an independent brand aiming overseas from an OEM. Exports of its self-branded refrigerators have doubled in North America through Walmart, Home Depot and Amazon. Covid-19 has spurred overall growth of domestic food and health appliance sales and Galanz has just boosted its overseas promotion and localization of its designs in recent years and this has yielded a steady stream of orders.

Sales of microwave and conventional ovens surged together along with fridges and washing machines as customers spent more time at home amid Covid-19, Li Wenjian, who is with Galanz’s overseas marketing department, told Yicai Global. The company has secured double-digit export revenue growth this year, while that of its own brand hit triple digits. First-quarter deliveries got postponed, and demand then constantly climbed in the second, third and fourth quarters.

“All exporters of the home appliance sector encountered the explosive growth of orders in the second half,” Yao Youjun, president of Zhongshan, Guangdong province-based large Chinese fridge exporter Homa, said to Yicai Global. This was mainly because the spread of Covid-19 overseas crippled production even as consumption grew, which amplified the clamor for China-made home appliances and brought mushrooming orders from abroad.

Homa logged about CNY6 billion (USD905.2 million) in business revenue in the first three quarters in an annual 4.3 percent rise, of which about CNY2.4 billion was from the third quarter, up 41 percent on the year. Profit was CNY130 million in the period. This yearly growth of some 9,570 percent reversed the company’s first-half downturn. Homa’s overseas orders will steadily surge until Covid-19 vaccines flood the market, Yao predicted.

Editor: Ben Armour, Xiao Yi