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before getting married, wu lin, a white-collar worker in beijing, equipped her new house with a retro green de'longhi italian semi-automatic coffee machine. having studied in the united states, coffee has long been flowing in her blood.

today, wu lin is not only a busy full-time lawyer, but also the mother of a three-year-old child. since this year, the coffee machine at home has not even been powered on. every morning, she just quickly pours a freeze-dried coffee powder into the milk as a "wake-up ritual." other times, she relies on starbucks and costa coffee to save herself from a busy day. .

in the past few years, home coffee machines have entered more and more people’s homes. the "2022 interesting lifestyle report" once mentioned that for the higher-income young group with an annual income of more than 300,000 yuan, the coffee corner was the home space they were most keen to upgrade at that time. even on the table in a rental house, young people can squeeze out a small space for a capsule machine to arrange their lives more appropriately.

why did it not take long for the internet celebrity coffee machine to become a decoration that "eats dust"? are young people who cannot live without coffee the first to leave the coffee machine?

internet celebrity coffee machine has become dusty?

when working together from home, people who are used to the bitter taste of coffee experienced the bitterness of losing coffee for the first time. typical shanghainese, the first thing they do when they go out is shout "i want to buy coffee" and rush into the coffee shop.

it’s better to ask for help than to ask for help yourself. if you have all the coffee equipment at home, wouldn’t you be able to relieve your coffee addiction at any time? in this way, home coffee machines have become a "rigorous need" for coffee stars.

according to the total data promoted by aowei cloud, the compound growth rate of the coffee machine industry sales in the five years from 2018 to 2022 reached 22.7%. the overall industry scale from january to november 2023 reached 2.46 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7%.

picture/aoweiyun.com

yan leyu, senior research manager of small household appliances big data business of aowei cloud network, said that according to monitoring data, home coffee machines are expected to maintain double-digit growth this year (preliminary forecast is 10%-15%), but the growth rate will narrow. it's almost inevitable.

lin kai has worked and lived in shanghai for more than ten years and drinks coffee every day, but the coffee machine at his home has also been gathering dust for a long time.

not long after he became a white-collar worker in shanghai, he even bought a coffee machine to put in his office. it was a taiwanese brand italian semi-automatic coffee machine priced at rmb 300 to 400. it was not expensive, but every afternoon he and his colleagues "worked in shifts" to make coffee, and his office life was very "shanghai".

at that time, white-collar workers in shanghai still loved starbucks. manner, a coffee shop covering an area of ​​several square meters, was about to be born, and it would take several years for luckin to be launched.

not long after, white-collar lin kai switched careers and became a programmer. he installed a more efficient capsule coffee machine at his work station in the new company. drinking coffee changed from a pleasant break at work to a simple quick refreshment.

programmer lin kai's desktop, the exquisite white-collar life is a thing of the past. picture/provided by interviewee

the espresso machine at home was given by a friend when he moved, but lin kai can't remember the last time he made coffee by himself. sometimes he would struggle for a while when he stood up to fill the water tank of the capsule machine in his office. “it’s hard for a migrant worker who works overtime every day to muster the courage to make coffee at home.”

this has to go back to the mainstream coffee machine types on the market, mainly espresso coffee machines, drip coffee machines, capsule coffee machines, etc. among them, espresso coffee machines include semi-automatic ones that require manual operation and those that can automatically grind, press powder, and brew. fully automatic equipment for making bubbles. cicc’s research report pointed out that with the rapid development of chain coffee brands, domestic coffee culture is rapidly popularizing, and consumers’ requirements for the quality of coffee machines continue to increase. the performance of high-pressure extraction and relatively mellower taste of espresso coffee machines is getting brighter. at present, the sales proportion has jumped from 20% in 2020 to 30% in 2022.

yan leyu also added that monitoring data in the first four months of this year also showed that the growth of the home coffee machine market came more from espresso machines with higher average prices.

but although the italian style is good, it has a lot of troubles.

fully automatic coffee machines only need to press buttons and wait, while semi-automatic coffee machines require grinding beans, pressing powder, etc. it may take a few minutes to make a cup of coffee, but the subsequent cleaning is the part that makes more people scratch their heads. . it is recommended to clean the handle, brewing head, and steam wand after almost every use. machines that are used more frequently, whether fully automatic or semi-automatic, require more in-depth cleaning and maintenance on a regular basis.

even capsule coffee machines, which are famous for their convenience and speed, still need to be cleaned regularly. posts circulating on social networks about coffee machines turning into cockroach nests can't help but frighten those who are not hands-on.

tmall new product innovation center and flywheel released a survey report in 2023 stating that the top three obstacles for consumers to buy coffee machines are lack of time, poor taste, and excessive expenditure on additional accessories. when it comes to purchasing a machine, "ease of cleaning" is one of the functional factors that consumers pay most attention to, alongside "extraction function".

there is no time to cook or wash. many people who have spent money to buy a home coffee machine have a similar mentality to wu lin: too lazy to wait.

who still loves home coffee machines?

however, for some frequent coffee drinkers, this is not a problem.

wang xiaotao, who once worked as a part-time barista at starbucks in beijing, spent 3,000 yuan to buy herself a solis italian semi-automatic coffee machine in 2021. she laughed and said that her coffee machine may be "overworked" every day.

picture/provided by interviewee

"turn on the machine and preheat it. grind the beans and add the powder in about ten seconds. the machine is almost preheated. after another twenty or thirty seconds of extraction, the coffee is done. two minutes is enough." she turned making coffee into waking up. as a fixed action at the end, she drinks three or four cups of coffee a day on average. if she has enough time, she will even make two more cups and put them in a thermos cup to take out.

wang zhensheng, the founder of "yǒu koffee" who cooperates with a well-known brand of home coffee machine in promotion and sales, said that from his experience of contacting a large number of coffee people, the users who now choose to purchase home coffee machines are more based on the concept of coffee consumption. those who need to upgrade. they may have requirements for the quality of coffee beans and have a certain concept of coffee extraction. "after all, freshly extracted products from a coffee machine are obviously better than any packaged form of coffee."

this group of people is not only highly dependent on coffee and pursues quality. in addition to home coffee machines, they usually also have hand brewing utensils or other forms of coffee drinks, and they are not opposed to going to coffee shops to consume. wang zhensheng said that it is precisely because of the diverse needs of coffee people for coffee that they have multi-level needs for home coffee machines.

not only that, as the total coffee consumption group expands, this group of heavy users will also increase.

when china's per capita annual coffee consumption is still struggling to reach double digits, deloitte data as early as 2021 has revealed that for white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities, this group of consumers who have developed coffee drinking habits, per capita annual coffee consumption has exceeded 260 cups.

wang peiling, general manager of the commercial department of de'longhi electric china, told interesting report that with the expansion of many coffee chain brands, the freshly brewed coffee market continues to expand, and consumers' coffee drinking habits are continuing to be cultivated. their pursuit of coffee taste and quality has also increased. the increase has driven the growth of users of home coffee machines.

consumers have different coffee preferences and preferences. different types of coffee machines also have great differences in price, difficulty of operation, production, etc. therefore, italian semi-automatic, italian fully automatic and capsule fully automatic are the top-selling products. mainstream consumers of the three types of coffee machines are also quite different.

based on long-term analysis of the consumer market, knox, the business leader of beijing durian marketing agency, pointed out that semi-automatic italian coffee machines with higher operating freedom and stronger sense of participation attract relatively young and diverse users. most of them are serious coffee lovers and have a certain knowledge of coffee. for them, the coffee machine is not only a small appliance, but also a reflection of their lifestyle.

italian-style fully-automatic coffee machines are more expensive than the former, but they are easy to operate and have stable cup quality. most of their consumers are already married, mainly high-income people in first- and second-tier cities, and coffee machines are part of the quality life of their families.

as for new species such as capsule coffee machines, they first appeared in hotels, b&bs and other places. good-looking appearance and ease of use are the basic impressions left on consumers. therefore, users who choose capsule machines at home compare them with the operational feel and cup quality. wait, what i care more about is a sense of relaxation and happiness.

yan leyu also added that with the increase in serious coffee lovers, more and more people's demand for coffee machines is shifting from functionality to higher quality experience. according to monitoring data from aowei cloud since 2022, although it is superior in terms of convenience and cleanliness, the market performance of capsule coffee machines that sacrifice taste to a certain extent is far less than that of espresso machines. “today’s coffee machine consumers are increasingly mature. "they have certain expectations for coffee machines of different price ranges, types and positions," she said.

wang peiling pointed out that the household coffee machine market has also shown more mature segmentation characteristics. italian-style fully automatic coffee machines with convenient operation, comprehensive functions and relatively high price range have maintained steady growth and are favored by users who need to upgrade and home users. semi-automatic coffee machines with more playability and lower price are popular among entry-level users and young users.

the coffee machine that has already collected dust may continue to collect dust for some time, but people who choose to buy coffee machines now are probably more rational.

are home coffee machines still a good business?

the 100-billion-dollar coffee market is continuing to grow in china, and household coffee machines with annual sales of only more than 2 billion are actually very small. however, while the overall market size of small household appliances has slowed down and the overall annual retail sales of small kitchen appliances have declined year-on-year for several consecutive years, coffee machines have maintained a growth trend in recent years.

although working from home has catalyzed the explosion of the coffee machine market, yan leyu emphasized that compared with the rapid decline of the air fryer, a popular internet celebrity small appliance during the same period, coffee machines are not a fast-growing "internet celebrity" ”, but a category with its own normal life cycle. although the growth rate has begun to slow down, it is far from declining.

knox agrees. in his view, home life once made "slow" coffee dominated by home coffee machines become a trend. coupled with the spread of coffee culture brought about by the expansion of freshly brewed coffee brands, the growth of the coffee machine market is not only due to the increase in consumer demand. there is also the emergence of hidden demands driven by culture, which in turn gives coffee machines a development advantage that other small kitchen appliances cannot currently match.

what cannot be ignored is that the supply side is also continuing to make efforts to shake up the inherent structure of the industry.

in fact, china is the country with the highest export volume of coffee machines in the world. as the capital of home appliances, shunde is the world's major coffee machine production center. however, for a long time, the coffee machine market has been "dominated" by overseas brands, and domestic companies have mostly acted as oems. exist.

the toubao research institute's "2024 china coffee machine industry overview" report shows that based on aowei cloud data, calculated in terms of online sales in 2023, coffee machine brands are highly concentrated, and the total market share of the top 15 best-selling brands is as high as 81.7% %, of which de’longhi brand accounts for nearly 30% of the market.

another obvious trend is that more and more domestic brand coffee machines are entering the market. whether it is well-known home appliance companies such as midea and xiaoxiong, emerging brands such as coffee freedom, or a large number of companies that once mainly produced coffee machines, they all want to get a share of the home coffee machine field. the aforementioned report shows that in 2023, the number of chinese coffee machine brands will account for nearly half, and the total market share of chinese coffee machine brands will be approximately 25.8%.

a certain midea italian semi-automatic coffee machine. picture/screenshot of e-commerce page

yan leyu pointed out that coffee is an imported product, and it is natural to focus on foreign brands. its development over many years has significant advantages, especially the higher-priced coffee machine types, which have certain technological thresholds. however, in the overall relatively saturated state of the (small) home appliance industry, home coffee machines are a relatively new category that still has certain growth potential. coffee machines are an area worth trying and deploying for many domestic companies.

xinbao co., ltd., a well-known company in shunde, is a typical example. it accounts for about 40% of the country's total coffee machine exports. its dongling, barsetto and other brands of coffee machine products are aimed at the domestic market, especially the latter, which is an independent brand acquired and launched by xinbao co., ltd., which has long been an oem for internationally renowned brands.

knox said that with the transformation and upgrading of "made in china", oem manufacturers that used to be coffee machine oems have matured production technology and experience, and like other industries, they have completed user contact at low prices. transformation, and then gradually strengthen its own quality and brand advantages to compete head-on with overseas brands.

at the same time, he reminded that domestic brand products are more concentrated in italian semi-automatic coffee machines. in the fully automatic field with higher technical barriers and brand weight, their participation is still low, and there is a large gap with imported brands. continued efforts are needed. use force.

this can also be seen in the data in the aforementioned report. among the top 15 best-selling brands, more than 50% have an average sales price between 2,000 and 4,500 yuan. this also explains why although there are many domestic coffee machine brands, their market share is relatively low.

but in general, many experts and practitioners agree that whether it is the continued development of overseas brands or the r&d catch-up of domestic brands, the household coffee machine industry is entering a period of flourishing brands and rapid product innovation.

home coffee machines with richer functions and easier operation may gradually enter the homes of more coffee lovers, avoiding the fate of gathering dust.