Appliance group Haier Europe held its annual 1 Vision Conference at the Rum Warehouse in Liverpool, under the theme “Dream, Believe, Achieve”.

The conference enabled the company to demonstrate its recent growth of Haier, Candy and Hoover brands, as well as highlight its future ambitions.

Haier Europe CEO for the UK and Ireland, David Meyerowitz opened the event stating Liverpool held a special place for the company, including Candy’s “iconic” sponsorship of the Liverpool football team.

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He reported Liverpool is twinned with Shanghai, along with four other Chinese cities, and added: “Qingdao is the global base for Haier smart home. It is innovative just like Liverpool is, so this is the perfect place for us to meet.”

Meyerowitz stated the company’s growth had been “phenomenal”, with 170 factories, selling to 160 countries, with 1 billion customers, 100,000 employees, 4,000 micro-enterprises and 140,000 retail partners. “We dream big with confidence,” he added.

He also pointed out the company is number 1 in washers and washer dryers with fast growth occurring in the cooling market.

“By 2025, 100% of our sales will be connected appliances,” he said and “they will focus on the “ultimate user experience.”

With a global turnover of €32 billion, Yannick Fierling CEO of Haier Europe stated the company now has a worldwide market share of 17%.

He stated:  “Every 1 in five fridges, wine coolers, washers, dryers are a Haier product. And despite the challenges we have faced recently with COVID and supply chain issues, we have doubled our turnover making us the fastest-growing smart home appliance company.”

Yannick Fierling added: “Selling a product was not enough. You must go from product to experience. We have built experiences for our consumers by building scenarios to see what works best for them.”

Sustainability is also a key focus for the company, as Fierling added: “We want to extend the life of appliances and we will do this by adding new versions of software through our app.

“Energy efficiency is important for us and being able to tell the customer when the cheapest time is to run an appliance efficiently, is important.”

As part of this, Haier Europe announced an initiative with Octopus Energy, which allows consumers the lowest cost per wash cycle at just 5p.

Head of IoT ecosystems at Haier Europe Leon Doyle announced this initiative and commented: “if you already have the Intelligent Octopus tariff you only need to download the latest wash cycles from the hOn app and schedule your wash during the off-peak window. If you have not got it, then give them a call to see if the switch is right for you.”

He outlined through the analysis of data driven insights it was evident existing customers consumers were reducing temperatures and shortening laundry cycles in response to the cost-of-living crisis.

He said: “Our zero distance to the consumer has shown us that, sadly, more and more consumers are extending days between washing, lowering their temperature and shortening their cycle all in the quest of reigning in their electricity bill.”

Looking forward, Haier Group has introduced two vacuum cleaners and is set to enter the small kitchen appliance sector.

Later this year, Haier, will unveil its Series 5 range of small kitchen appliances and unveil its Series 7 range in 2024.

Closing the conference, Meyerowitz stated: “We want to be the first customer of choice for the smart home, and we are well on our way to achieving this goal.”