Key Points of the Article
1. Overview of the Multifunction Air Fryer Market: In 2021, sales on Tmall and Taobao reached 3.71 million units with a sales volume of 2.818 billion yuan, an increase of 92.28% year-over-year.
2. Competitive Landscape: Currently, the multifunction air fryer track is very crowded, with relatively low technological barriers and entry thresholds, the top 4 brands are neck and neck, but the gap is gradually widening.
3. Reasons for Popularity: Air fryers support oil-free cooking for healthier meals, and the integration of multiple functions is more convenient. At the same time, the overlap of major trends such as "home economy + lazy economy + single economy + health economy," supplemented by massive UGC (User-Generated Content), has pushed air fryers into the public eye.
4. Future Trends: The stir-frying machine is expected to become the next air fryer, with intelligence, integration, embedded installation, multifunctionality, and all-in-one kitchen appliances becoming the inevitable new trends in the development of kitchen appliances.
Under the trend of a younger consumer main force, "elegant laziness" has become the most prominent characteristic of the post-90s, post-95s, and post-00s groups, with electric toothbrushes in the morning, relying on DiDi for transportation, ordering takeout at noon, cooking with smart kitchen appliances at home, using intelligent cleaning appliances, and even integrating and automating the multi-step operation of makeup. In limited income and relatively small living spaces, multifunctional integration is drawing more attention. GFK market research shows that 58% of users agree with multifunctional products, and among high-end users, this proportion is 71%.
The trend of multifunctional and integrated devices is even more pronounced in the domestic kitchen appliance field; integrated stoves, representing multifunctional integration, showed strong growth momentum during the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 and in 2021, with the annual retail sales volume approaching 25 billion yuan. According to the data from "2021 China Integrated Kitchen Appliances Development Trend White Paper", only 32.4% of consumers are completely unaware of integrated kitchen appliances, 47.3% have a basic understanding, and 23.3% of the consumers are currently using integrated kitchen appliances. It is evident that integrated kitchen appliances have a relatively high market awareness, and with the replacement of old appliances, there is huge potential for the consumption of multifunctional integrated kitchen appliances.
This article will deeply analyze the kitchen appliance raceway under the multifunctional integrated concept .
Integration is both a trend and an opportunity. In recent years, continuously rising consumer demand for upgrades has driven the kitchen appliance industry to develop towards higher quality and premiumization, and the market penetration of integrated kitchen appliances has been increasing. According to the AVC Cloud Network "2022 China Kitchen and Bathroom Market Top 10 Predictions" report, integrated products continue to maintain their advantages such as multi-functionality and high cost-performance, with further replacement relationships existing at the market demand end. "Integrated Kitchen Appliances" still possess substantial consumption resilience and vast market space, becoming an important force driving the transformation and development of the kitchen appliance market.
In 2021, products with multifunctional integrated attributes reached 146 million units sold on the Tmall and Taobao platforms, with a cumulative sales of 45.518 billion yuan, an increase of 11.7% year-over-year. Online, around 20% of home appliances now flaunt features of "multifunctionality, integration, all-in-one," and the most representative integrated stoves have exceeded 5 billion yuan in online sales volume, with core advantages reflected in the following aspects:
High space utilization rate, realization of modular functions, and meeting personalized consumer demands;
halved distance for fume extraction, strong smoke control effect, and a smoke extraction rate of over 95%;
performance improvements in noise reduction, health index, and smoke separation.
Besides integrated stoves, traditional categories like rice cookers that have already entered the stock market achieved a 15.5% growth in multifunction rice cookers in 2021; air fryers, which also have attributes of "healthy cooking" and "function integration," have achieved nearly a 100% surge in sales volume; and categories like electric pressure cookers, tea makers, and steam-bake all-in-ones have also maintained rapid growth.
"If you have an air fryer..." When this sentence rings out, you would never guess what’s being fried inside. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, air fryers have become the most favored online celebrity home appliances among consumers, with everything from fried chicken wings, French fries, baked egg tarts, baked yogurt, making raisins, to drying flowers... for a time, everything could be air-fried.
How hot are air fryers? Just look at this set of data: On TikTok, the topic #AirFryer got 5.75 billion views, #AirFryerFood got 4.26 billion views; on Xiaohongshu, searching for “air fryer” displays over 310,000+ notes; on Douban, the “Air Fryer Food Group” has gathered 149,271 members ...
The rapid growth of air fryers has not only made other industries envious but has also attracted numerous brands and corporations to enter the fray. Many brands and corporations have already started exploring the path of multifunction integrated air fryers. On the product level, air fryers have evolved from a simple air frying function to include a wider variety of integrated functions, such as Joyoung's KL50-VF583 multifunction air fryer, which can switch the pot body to a 360-degree rotating baking tray, broadening the usage of the air fryer and increasing the frequency of use by consumers.
In 2021, sales of multifunction air fryers on Tmall and Taobao reached 3.71 million units with a sales volume of 2.818 billion yuan, a year-over-year increase of 92.28%.
Currently, the price of air fryers on the market is relatively low, excluding Philips, the top 10 brands on Tmall and Taobao all use a low-price model for multifunction air fryers, with average prices concentrated between 280-450 yuan. The number of market goods and market shares have continued to rise in the second half of 2021.
Air fryers have officially entered the home use scene since 2010. Early players were overseas manufacturers who were the first to master core technologies such as Philips and Tefal. Since 2018, Ninja and Vesync have successively launched air fryer products and currently hold the top two sales rankings on Amazon USA. In the domestic market, smaller manufacturers like Yamamoto, Reenor, and Uumate introduced related products earlier, and traditional small home appliance giants such as Midea and Joyoung have already captured a larger market share.
Currently, online multifunction air fryer product giants are concentrated: in 2021, the top 5 brands almost reached 57% market share in the online multifunction air fryer market, and the market is beginning to mature. Sales volume top 3 brands were Joyoung, SUPOR, and Midea, with Joyoung holding a 14.79% market share on Tmall and Taobao and increasing by 68% year-over-year; SUPOR held 13.10%, increasing 108.42% year-over-year; Midea ranked third with 12%, increasing 41.40% year-over-year.
Currently, the multifunction air fryer raceway is very crowded, and the technological barriers and entry thresholds are relatively low. The top 10 brands show that the first four brands are neck and neck, with the gap gradually widening. Besides early players like Yamamoto, Uumate, and Reenor, brands that entered the raceway later, such as Joyoung, SUPOR, and AUX, etc., have continuously maintained high sales growth.
The top-selling product of 2021 Tmall and Taobao multifunction air fryers was Yamamoto's home air fryer SB-D16, which sold 630,000 units in 2021 with a sales volume of 174 million yuan.
For small household appliances like air fryers, unlike fast-moving consumer goods, the penetration rate in first-tier and new first-tier cities is generally lower than the overall level due to restrictions such as housing rental/purchase ratio and per capita living space. In the coming years, the air fryer market in first- and second-tier cities is likely to rapidly reach its peak, thus entering a phase of intense competition. Meanwhile, in the lower-tier markets represented by fourth- and fifth-tier cities, people are increasingly pursuing convenience in life. Consumers still have high expectations for small appliances, and many new categories of small appliances have not yet become prevalent in their kitchens. Coupled with concerns about dining out, the lower-tier markets represented by fifth-tier cities could potentially become a new growth point for the small appliance market in the future.
From another perspective, the market expansion into lower-tier markets still holds new opportunities. Since kitchens in fourth- and fifth-tier cities are relatively more spacious and can accommodate more small appliances; and people's pace of life is also relatively slower, giving them more time to use various small gadgets and tend to buy more categories and quantities of small appliances.
Product Itself:
Less Oil and Fat, Delicious and Healthy: Air fryers avoid the pain point of using oil for frying, and use air circulation technology to heat the food with air instead of fats.
Multifunctionality, Convenient, and Easy to Clean: Air fryers remove the biggest difficulty of manual temperature control and time-consuming preheating; just place the food inside and adjust the timer.
Market Background:
"Homebody Economy": Influenced by quarantine policies and safety issues under the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers craving delicious food have to shift their passion for tasty meals to the kitchen, and air fryers quickly hitched a ride on this "homebody economy" express.
"Laziness Economy": There is no doubt that the "fool-proof" operation of air fryers completely fits the trend of the "laziness economy." Where the operation seemed complicated and high threshold such as frying french fries or baking cakes, now with an air fryer, everything can be done at the push of a button.
"Singles Economy": The high aesthetic, compact size, easy operation, and multifunctionality of air fryers undoubtedly make "one-person living" and "one-person meals" more convenient and more stylish.
"Health Economy": The selling points of "oil-free," "low-fat," and "healthy" for air fryers, for food lovers who are afraid of gaining weight, are like finding the healthy+tasty diet secret.
Social Platform Boost:
If the "homebody economy," "laziness economy," and "health economy" prepared the ground for the popularity of air fryers, then social platforms like TikTok and Little Red Book are the east wind that blew air fryers into thousands of households.
In the big explosion of the air fryer category, UGC content (User Generated Content) showed extremely strong driving power. Through the editing of short videos, the high aesthetic, fast cooking, simple operation, and suitability for frying everything of air fryers were vividly displayed, making many kitchen novices believe that as long as they own an air fryer, they too can get the same refined lifestyle as a gourmet vlogger.
According to Moojing monitoring, intelligent cooking machines meet the consumer characteristics of a super multi-function integration and convenience. In the daily kitchen, it can play an important role as a main cook, and is currently growing at a rate of 45.68%. Data Source: Internet (Introduction of a Brand's Cooking Machine Function)
With the continuous maturity of core technologies leading to price drops to a range affordable by the general public and the continuous occupation of consumer mindshare by intelligent cooking, it is predicted to possibly reach a billion-level market size within five years. Data Source: Moojing Market Intelligence
The diversification of functions is easily recognized by consumers, but what is invisible are the challenges behind it, such as the coordination of core parts, space duplication issues, and detailed design of industrial aesthetics. Each of these challenges is being tackled.
In the current era, kitchen appliances are gradually integrating into family life scenarios. Products like integrated stoves and integrated sink dishwashers, which represent large integrated kitchen appliances, and air fryers and electric steamers, which represent multifunctional small kitchen appliances, are breaking free from the constraints of single-functionality. For example, an integrated sink dishwasher integrates functionalities such as a sink, dishwasher, disinfection cabinet, water purifier, fruit and vegetable pesticide residue cleaner, instant hot water heater, and waste disposal unit into one, improving the cumbersome experience of meal preparation and post-meal cleaning. It helps create a more convenient, higher quality life with integrated functions like disinfection, cleaning, and water purification. Multifunction integrated kitchen appliances are accelerating and upgrading, and the intelligent function matrix is becoming richer and more practical, with features such as range hood linkage, timed control, reservation function, APP remote control, touch screen operation, voice recognition, Bluetooth connectivity, intelligent security, automatic warranty, and gesture control emerging. Intelligent recipes, entertainment and leisure, and home appliance interconnectivity are gradually becoming mainstream.
Currently, as the kitchen appliance industry as a whole enters a gear-shifting phase, it is urgently needed to find new growth points from the stock market. Under the influence of multiple factors such as limited kitchen space,
kitchen appliances are increasingly developing towards integration, multimodality, and multifunctional orientation. The trend of multifunctional integration of kitchen appliances is no longer just a concept. The continuous emergence of intelligent, integrated, embedded, multifunctional, and all-in-one kitchen appliances in the market is bound to become a new opportunity for development. The kitchen appliance industry is ushering in a new pattern, and only by seizing the "strong trend" of market development and accelerating the upgrading of traditional kitchen equipment can kitchen appliance brands meet market demand better and welcome rapid brand development.
