Photo: Courtesy of Midea

Chinese home appliances makers gear up tech innovation as they eye overseas market expansion. Midea, a leading brand in smart home appliances, said it has won the 2023 Global Product Technical Innovation Award at the ongoing IFA event, an internationally acclaimed trade fair for consumer and home electronic that takes place from September 1 to 5 in Berlin, Germany.

Midea said its product, the PortaSplit, a smart air conditioner that combines cutting-edge cooling technology with unprecedented flexibility, won the Room Comfort Technology Innovation Gold Award. The product exemplifies the company's goal to address user needs through insightful engineering and design. Midea said that the product is set to make market debut in 2024.

The Global Product Technical Innovation Award is a hallmark in the consumer electronics industry, representing the pinnacle of technical achievement and innovation, celebrating brands that are at the forefront of tech advancements. The annual event serves as a global stage for consumer electronics brands to showcase their breakthroughs.

In eying further growth in Europe, the company said it is working with the Corporate Research Center focuses on transferring long-term research into common technology, core technology, prospective technological studies, and disruptive product platform innovation.

The research center mainly serves the European market, and the categories involved mainly include refrigeration and air conditioning, heat pump hot water, fresh air fans, light commercial products, optical storage and other industries and businesses, the company said.

The research center also brings together the latest trends in global research with development resources, while promoting global R&D distribution in the USA, Germany, and Italy, along with its R&D Centers in Shanghai and Shenzhen in China.

Technological support is the key to home appliances. Relying on the innovation capability of green and low-carbon technology, Midea said it is formulating and strictly implementing green standards and designing more environmentally friendly products.

In addition to Midea, other Chinese home appliance companies including TCL and Haier were also present at the show. The sales of TCL color TVs in the European market increased by nearly 20 percent this year, news portal yicai.com reported. The sales income of Haier increased by 30 percent in the first half of this year.

To further increasing their presence in the Europe, Midea Group has invested more than 12 billion yuan ($1.68 billion) in research and development (R&D) in 2022, setting a new record high; over the past five years, including 2022, Midea Group has invested more than 50 billion yuan in R&D expenses, the company said. 

China's total expenditure on R&D amounted to nearly 3.09 trillion yuan in 2022, up 10.4 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Global Times