As part of its wider strategy to expand its business internationally, Chinese home appliance manufacturer Skyworth Group announced plans to build three new factories overseas.
The Shenzhen-based company revealed that it would be building three manufacturing facilities in North America, South America, and the Middle East over the next two to three years.
The new facilities will significantly increase the company's ability to meet the demand in foreign markets. According to the company's chief executive officer, Liu Tangzhi, internationalization is currently one of its main focuses to combat the growing saturation in its home market.
Liu mentioned in an interview late last week that Skyworth plans to significantly expand its global network in the coming years to enhance its supply chain. North America, South America, and the Middle East will apparently be the company's target markets in the coming years.
As of the moment, the company currently has four major overseas manufacturing facilities, namely in India, Indonesia, Germany, and South Africa. Along with its manufacturing facilities, the company also has a number of overseas research and development centers aimed at helping it build products specific to each market.
Skyworth also revealed that it is studying various technologies that could be integrated into their existing products. This includes the development of smart system integration and the internet of things (IoT) appliances. The company recently unveiled a new product called the smart tea table last week. The product is meant to be a central system that can be used to control other appliances and devices within a home or apartment.
Apart from expanding its overseas manufacturing facilities, Skyworth is also planning to expand its subsidiaries and overseas organizations from 22 to 30 over the next two years.
Skyworth's ambitious and likely expensive global expansion plans come at a time when the company is continually struggling to perform in China's oversaturated market. The company is also finding it hard to compete in its own country given the recent economic growth slowdown and China's ongoing trade dispute with the United States.
All of the aforementioned factors have resulted in drastically slowing sales as Chinese consumers cut their spending on home appliances. According to the China Household Electric Appliance Research Institute and National Electrical Appliance Industry Information Center, the country's home appliance sales had dropped by more than 4.2 percent to around $24.8 billion in the third quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, home appliance exports to other countries have seen n substantial growth of 1.7 percent for the third quarter. The figures indicate that home appliance manufacturers are seeing increasing orders from abroad, likely giving them more incentives to expand globally.
