In the second half of 2020, the export volume of refrigerators increased beyond the expectations of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain. According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, from January to October 2020, China's cumulative refrigerator export volume was 56.01 million units, higher than the refrigerator export volume in 2019, an increase of 28.3%. Under such circumstances, whole machine factories need to rapidly expand their production capacity to cope with the rapidly growing demand. Equipment enterprises supporting production lines and foaming machines for the whole machine factory also need to follow the rhythm of the whole machine factory and expand supply.

Equipment gradually localization, foreign brands re-technology application

polyurethane foam production line by cadres equipment and wet equipment composed of two parts. The cadre equipment is mainly composed of foam fixture, automatic production line, mold frame, etc.; Wet end equipment is mainly composed of high pressure foaming machine, premix equipment, metering system and so on.

Anhui Xinmeng Equipment Co., Ltd. is China's largest production of foam production line equipment enterprises, but also China's only listed on the new third board polyurethane foam production line enterprises. According to Fan Zenghui, general manager of Anhui Xinmeng Equipment Co., LTD., Xinmeng equipment can supply the refrigerator industry with vacuum blister molding machine, refrigerator freezer box, door body foam production line, and refrigerator side plate U shell, door shell sheet metal forming line. In 2020, affected by the increase of refrigerator exports, the sales growth of Xinmeng equipment refrigerator field reached 80%. Among them, the sales of refrigerator inner bladder blister molding equipment increased significantly.

Talking about the reasons for the rapid growth of sales of refrigerator inner blister molding equipment, Fan Zenghui said frankly: "In the past, the refrigerator factory more to purchase German and Italian equipment, in 2006, Xinmo equipment began to develop and produce refrigerator inner blister molding equipment, after a few years of technical reserves, now our equipment can not only meet the needs of the whole factory, but also shorter delivery time. Affected by the epidemic, the delivery time of foreign brands of equipment is longer, it takes about 1 year, coupled with the relatively high level of equipment complexity, their technicians are difficult to go to China to help the whole machine factory for installation and commissioning and technical guidance. This makes the whole machine factory change their thinking and begin to purchase domestic models. Therefore, the epidemic has brought us a rare opportunity for development.

Take Hisense Refrigerator as an example, from Qingdao Pingdu factory to Yangzhou factory, then to Shunde factory and Chengdu factory, a total of 5 production lines have purchased our refrigerator liner blister molding equipment. And the average purchase price of each production line equipment is between 5 million and 6 million yuan. In addition, after the acquisition of Toshiba, Midea Refrigerator built a factory in Bangkok, Thailand, and then rapidly expanded its production capacity. In 2020, it purchased refrigerator interior blister molding and door vacuum molding equipment from Xinmeng Equipment at one time, with an order value of more than 20 million yuan.

The supply of polyurethane foam wet end equipment and cadre equipment is very different, especially the foam machine and mold frame have achieved about 90% of the localization. Sichuan Hangfa Malong Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Co., Ltd. is a 22-year focus on polyurethane high pressure foaming machine, foaming line, cyclopentane high pressure foaming machine, HFC-245fa high pressure foaming machine, ODS green low-carbon environmental protection alternative technology equipment design, research and development and manufacturing enterprises, is currently the largest production of high pressure foaming machine in China. The cooperative refrigerator enterprises include Hisense, Gree, Meiling, Okma, Midea, Xingxing, Aoma, Skyworth, Haier, TCL, Wanbao, Changhong and so on.

In addition, Italy's Conlon, Germany's Hennecke, Kraussmaffei are also suppliers of high-pressure foaming machines. Although their market share in the whole Chinese refrigerator industry has decreased, they have more advantages in the field of new foaming technology. Thanks to the surging export volume of refrigerators, the orders of Conlon, Hennecke and Kraussmaffei also showed an increase trend. Zhou Zhengping, chief representative of Kanglong's Shanghai representative office, told reporters: "Our new equipment orders of nearly 20 million euros came from Haier refrigerators. Among them, Haier Hefei introduced a second vacuum foam production line and a new door foam production line, Haier Qingdao Zhongde Industrial Park introduced a second vacuum foam production line and a new refrigerator door foam line, Haier Romania new project introduced a vacuum foam production line, Haier Foshan introduced a new box foam production line, Haier Freezer has introduced a new box foam production line for refrigerator and wine cabinets." In addition, Hennecke and Haier have signed an order for 15 million euros of new equipment, according to an industry source. Orders for Kraussmaffei foaming machines have also increased significantly compared to previous years.

Singapore Runying Company is a company focusing on foaming machine and premix equipment, participated in the refrigerator industry from the whole factory from the binary foaming system to the multi-blend foaming system upgrade process. According to Yufu Zhang, China regional sales manager of Singapore Runying Polymerization Industry Co., LTD., "A few years ago, the polyurethane foam premixing technology in the refrigerator industry has been very mature, and the order volume is relatively stable."

Optimistic market outlook or continue to 2021

In fact, the price of polyurethane foaming equipment is also rising, in order to reduce the pressure on the whole machine factory, equipment factory is also joint with the whole machine factory to develop lower cost solutions.

According to Yufu Zhang revealed that in 2020, because of the increase in the output of the refrigerator factory, as well as the upgrade and transformation of the premix equipment of the whole factory to reduce the production cost of the refrigerator, the order volume of the premix equipment of the refrigerator industry this year has increased significantly than in previous years.

Xinmeng equipment by improving production efficiency and reducing energy consumption to help enterprises reduce costs. Fan Zenghui said that Xinmeng Equipment is currently developing an in-die cutting technology, which can eliminate the punching and trimming processes in the plate forming process. "The previous technology produced about 180 to 200 molds per hour." With this technology, we want to increase the output to 240 to 280 molds per hour. Another example is that in 2019, we did some joint research and development with Hefei University of Technology on vacuum forming technology. We found that adding a medium wave infrared heating system to the vacuum forming equipment can reduce the energy consumption of refrigerator liner production. According to preliminary calculations, the total energy consumption of each unit can be reduced by 15 to 20 percent." Fan added.

"Kanglong is also working with enterprises to improve the automation of equipment, such as power consumption, gas consumption, water consumption data should be directly displayed, equipment can also read, collect and store some important technical parameters, in addition to reducing labor is also the enterprise needs." Zhou Zhengping said, "These more intelligent equipment can help the whole machine factory reduce considerable costs, and it is necessary to invest in equipment procurement. "At present, Kanglong's market share of smart foaming equipment in China is 30 to 35 percent."

In 2020, the unexpected production and marketing of the refrigerator industry has excited upstream equipment factories but also caused concerns of some enterprises. Whether such a boom is a flash in the pan or will continue to flourish, every equipment company in the refrigerator industry chain wants to know the answer.

Fan Zenghui believes that such a boom will last at least until the middle of 2021, or possibly later. "Because we already have orders for July 2021," he said.

Zhou Zhengping also believes that global refrigerator orders are shifting to China, and the expansion of refrigerator factory capacity is inevitable. "Judging from the current situation, the epidemic will last until at least June 2021," he said. The investment in polyurethane foaming equipment in the refrigerator factory will last longer than the epidemic. For the market demand trend after June 2021, it depends on the real trend of the epidemic. Therefore, it remains to be seen how long the hot demand for equipment in the refrigerator factory will continue."

Zhang Yufu is cautious about the trend of refrigerator demand. He believes it is still unknown exactly how the coronavirus pandemic will develop. One possibility is that the refrigerator factory will simply expand capacity in 2020 and then reevaluate to maintain or reduce capacity. Another possibility is that the epidemic will continue or become more serious, the production capacity of foreign enterprises is still difficult to return to the previous level, and the refrigerator factory continues to expand production capacity. But what the answer is, we don't know yet. Therefore, Runying currently maintains existing orders and will not change its layout in the refrigerator industry for the time being.