Domestic VS International Brands in Chinese Cleaning Market

Equipment manufacturers, distributors and property cleaning providers are all gradually realizing that consumers will give top priority to brands when they are making a decision, and that the low-price strategy will no longer work.

Thanks to policy support and governmental funding in China, the hotel, automobile and medical industries are developing rapidly, thereby driving the development of the cleaning industry.

For example, figures show the number of five-star hotels in China increased by 25% to nearly 800 between 2010 and 2014, much higher than the 6.9% growth of four-star hotels in the same period (there were about 2,400 four-star hotels in China in 2014). This indicates that the lifestyle of Chinese citizens has changed fundamentally, with the majority of people seeking a higher quality of life and focusing more on sanitation and hygiene.

With the rise of domestic demands, the domesticization of cleaning equipment has been enhanced. At the China Clean Expo 2015 (CCE2015), almost two thirds (63%) of cleaning equipment and cleaning product brands came from Chinese manufacturers, while the remaining 37% were from other countries and regions from all over the world.

Data collected at the Expo shows that domestic Chinese manufacturers of cleaning products are located across the country, but especially in Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

China's independently-developed cleaning products consist of pressure washers, scrubbing and sweeping equipment, vacuum cleaners, floor mats, detergent, and stone care products. According to the monitoring statistics of the Meadin Brand Index (MBI), the top three cleaning equipment brands used by Chinese hotels in 2014 were Karcher (Germany), Sailstar (China) and Viper (Italy) respectively. Compared with the rankings in 2013, Karcher remained unchanged, while Sailstar moved up one place to second, and Viper fell one place to third, reflecting that China has the capacity and technology now to manufacture products whose quality and function are comparable or even superior to imported products.

However, the development of the Chinese cleaning industry has come later than that over overseas countries, leading to a huge gap between domestic and international companies in terms of specialization.

According to www.chinaclean.org; "The quality of personnel in the cleaning industry varies in China, and the brand competition is in the state of disorder." Though there are various Chinese-owned products, few of them have features that differentiate them from the competition which makes them less distinguishable in the eyes of the public. In comparison, foreign brands, with their orderly management and many years of professional R&D, are more easily accepted by Chinese consumers, still keeping favorable competitive strength in the Chinese market. The 37% of overseas brands at the 2015 China Clean Expo were from the U.S. (12%), Italy (8%), Germany (7%), Japan (3%) and other countries and regions (7%). It is clear that domestic and overseas brands are co-existing and competing with each other in the concurrent Chinese market.

The China Clean Expo is therefore dedicated to providing a platform to promote mutual communication between domestic and international brands, introducing the advanced technologies and management modes of overseas brands, and also driving leading Chinese brands to the international market in order that they can be globally accepted. All in all, it is hoped that all brand manufacturers can use the China Clean Expo as a platform to boost the sustainable development of the Chinese cleaning industry.