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Interface News reporter | Zhou Fangying

Jiemian News Editor | Xu Yue

recently,Gree Electric AppliancesChairman and President Dong Mingzhu announced at the Gree refrigerator and washing machine home appliance strategy launch conference that Gree Electric has developed a beauty instrument, saying "after using it for a week, you will find that you are more beautiful", and encouraged on-site dealers to place orders.

Gree Dong Mingzhu's online store shows that Gree's microcurrent beauty instrument GM-E01 is expected to be shipped from August 25, priced at 9,800 yuan, and currently shows sales of more than 960 units. Gree has not yet listed this beauty instrument on other third-party e-commerce platforms.

According to the product page, the main effect of this microcurrent beauty instrument is to tighten and lift the skin to achieve anti-aging effects. This beauty instrument combines 1.5KHz ultra-low frequency microcurrent, physical vibration massage, light therapy technology, and hot and cold temperature switching.

Gree is trying to develop growth areas beyond air conditioners.

In 2023, Gree Electric's total revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders exceeded 200 billion yuan and 20 billion yuan respectively, setting new records. However, the air-conditioning business alone contributed 151.217 billion yuan, which is still the company's main source of income. At the 2023 Annual Shareholders' Meeting held at the end of June, Dong Mingzhu said: "(Gree) air-conditioning is the best. The growth point is refrigerators and washing machines."

Now at the strategic launch conference, Dong Mingzhu again encouraged dealers to place orders for newly launched beauty devices. It can be imagined how eager Gree Electric is to expand into new home appliance business formats.

But the beauty device business is not as easy as Dong Mingzhu imagined. Although Dong Mingzhu has developed herself into the most classic marketing spokesperson for Gree Electric Appliances, her personal testimony on the effects of beauty devices may not necessarily infect skeptical consumers.

Compared with other micro-current beauty devices on the market, the price of Gree's product is super high-end. As for domestic brands, the prices of micro-current beauty devices represented by brands such as Jmoon and Musu basically range from a few hundred yuan to 3,000 yuan. Even international beauty device brands that entered the market earlier, such as Ya-Moon, Zeus,MatsushitaEtc., the price range of their microcurrent beauty devices is often less than 5,000 yuan.

Such a high price range for beauty devices forces Gree to give consumers a reason to be willing to pay for it. Moreover, the beauty device industry is in the stage of development pain, coupled with the weak recovery of the cosmetics industry, it is not easy for consumers to believe in the efficacy of beauty devices and spend tens of thousands of yuan on high-end beauty devices.

Just like the late start of the cosmetics market, China’s home beauty device market has not been developed for long enough.

According to the industry report of Zhiyan Consulting, it was not until 2012 that overseas brands such as Ya-Man and Tripollar entered the Chinese market, and the industry really started to take off. From 2016 to 2019, as the medical beauty market attracted capital attention, the domestic beauty instrument industry developed rapidly, and sales channels extended from offline counter channels to online e-commerce platforms, and the industry entered a period of explosive growth. From 2020 to date, the domestic market as a whole is still dominated by overseas brands, but domestic brands are developing rapidly; sales channels have also extended to live broadcast platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, and the industry has entered a period of growth.

In recent years, while home beauty devices are in a rapid development period, product safety issues have been frequently exposed, such as facial burns and other consumer feedback. This has also led to industry supervision efforts towards standardization.

As stated in the "Guidelines for Registration and Review of Radio Frequency Beauty Devices (No. 8 of 2023)" issued in April 2023, for devices used in home environments, it is necessary to consider the risks of use in this environment based on factors such as the product's structural characteristics, usage duration, surrounding environment, and non-users, and conduct usability-related research. At the same time, the risks of product use should also be considered in combination with foreseeable misoperation, unconventional use, and use beyond the scope of use, and necessary safety mechanisms should be designed.

Prior to this, the National Medical Products Administration issued the "Announcement on Adjusting Some Contents of the Medical Device Classification Catalog (No. 30 of 2022)" in March 2022, announcing that radiofrequency therapeutic devices and radiofrequency skin therapeutic devices will be managed as Class III medical devices. However, the official implementation date has been postponed for two years from the original April 1, 2024.

However, before the announcement of the extension in July 2024, the major home beauty device brands had removed their radio frequency beauty devices from their Tmall flagship stores after the new regulations were originally scheduled to take effect in April. After the extension announcement was released, these radio frequency beauty devices were put back on the shelves.

Because two years after the new regulations were issued, no brand has yet applied for a Class III medical device registration certificate that meets the requirements of the new regulations. Class III medical devices have the highest management standards among medical devices, so the application is the most difficult and the application cycle is longer. In addition, the lack of such precedents and relevant guidance documents in the home radio frequency beauty instrument industry has also increased the difficulty of application.

Although radio frequency beauty devices are more effective, the difficulty in obtaining evidence may be the reason why Gree chose to start from the perspective of microcurrent beauty devices. Developing new non-radio frequency beauty devices is also the mainstream choice of major beauty device brands during this period.

According to a popular science tweet from the Department of Dermatology at West China Hospital of Sichuan University, microcurrent beauty devices are said to be able to generate microcurrents to stimulate the skin and muscles, thereby increasing cell activity and cell metabolism, reducing muscle tension, and promoting the healing and repair of cells or wounds with minor inflammation. Although a small number of studies have shown that microcurrents are related to promoting the healing of skin wounds, there are also many studies that prove that there is no relationship between the two.

The main principle of home radio frequency beauty devices is to use radio frequency energy to penetrate the skin, reach the dermis or muscle fascia layer, trigger the high-speed oscillation and friction of water molecules in tissue cells to generate heat, heat the collagen fibers to about 55-65°C, start the repair and regeneration of the skin through thermal damage, and continuously stimulate the repair and regeneration of collagen. However, for the sake of safety, home instruments have made great concessions in terms of effect, and their effect is far inferior to that of medical radio frequency beauty equipment. In addition, home phototherapy beauty devices also have the same problem.

The lack of industry regulatory guidelines and quantitative standards for real effects has caused the development of home beauty devices to stagnate. Domestic and foreign beauty device brands such as Ya-meng and Amiro are experiencing the negative impact of performance pressure. Gree's chances of winning the market at a time when the industry is at a low point are not great.