The heatwave in Europe is making headlines in China, but for an unexpected reason.
As temperatures have soared past 40°C in Germany, France, the UK and beyond, Europeans are rushing to buy air conditioners which is something they have rarely needed until now.
Only around 20% of European households are air conditioned, compared to nearly 90% in the United States. Older properties were built for cooler weather, and strict heritage rules limit changes to their exteriors, such as fitting external air conditioning units. So installing one is often either prohibited altogether, or prohibitively expensive with fitting costs alone running to over €1,000.
But despite the high cost, many Europeans are now buying air conditioners for their homes. Orders have surged at big Asian manufacturers like Korea's Samsung, Japan's Mitsubishi Electric, and Midea (美的), a Chinese white-goods manufacturer headquartered in Foshan in Guangdong.
One Midea product has stood out this summer. It’s called the PortaSplit.
As the name suggests, it's a portable "split-unit" (分体式) air conditioner with one part that fixes outside a window, and a cooling unit which sits on the floor inside. Designed specifically for the European market, it’s sold out in several countries at €900 per unit, with second-hand prices soaring to two to three times that.
The PortaSplit's popularity is down to how it works within Europe's strict and varied building rules across different countries. Its outdoor unit clips onto a windowsill with a simple bracket so no tools or drilling are required. This means in legal terms it counts as an internal appliance on a shelf, sidestepping the ban on façade changes to older buildings. Its refrigerant capacity is 1.99kg, just under the French 2kg threshold. In silent mode it runs at 35 decibels, right on the German limit. And its efficiency rating of 6.1 lands just inside the bottom end of Switzerland's A++ band.
So it's the ingenuity of Midea's design that has caught attention in China, which is summarised in this common internet slang phrase:
This is product design at its finest, which has been jokingly called “gaming the system”.
Midea’s global, legal and design teams all deserve a hefty year-end bonus.
这种极致的产品定义被戏称为”卡bug”，美的的外贸、法务和设计团队都该集体加年终奖。
"Gaming the system" (卡bug) is a hybrid Chinese-English slang phrase. It comes from the early days of online gaming in China, where certain repeated moves or keyboard combinations exploited bugs in those early games to jump to higher levels.
Related
Midea’s success in Europe comes at a time when companies in China are obsessing about “going global” (出海).
Faced with declining consumer spending, “involuted competition” (内卷), market saturation, and often increasingly restrictive government policies at home, many have concluded that:
“It’s either go global or go down.”
不出海，就出局
But some firms struggle to "go global" because they fail to adapt to foreign markets. And those that do adapt come up against the same Chinese competitors they were trying to escape from at home.
Chinese companies supply 80% to 90% of the home air conditioners sold in Europe, so competition between them is already fierce, in what is often described in business lingo as:
“Taking involuted competition from China to overseas markets.”
从国内卷到海外去
And this usually ends the same way it does at home: a “race to the bottom on price” (卷价格).
But with the PortaSplit, Midea has sidestepped this involuted competition and opened a “new opportunity for growth” (known as 增量 in Chinese). It’s done this by identifying a specific “pain point” (痛点) in Europe which none of its competitors have yet solved. Another business-y way to describe it is “providing a missing link in the supply chain” (补链 in Chinese). Which is to provide a specific solution to a specific problem in that market which is under served, backed by the ability to design, manufacture and distribute at scale, fast.
The result is a product that competes not on price but on the problem it solves: an affordable fix that works within strict building rules, which is easy to fit, and costs less than buying and installing a traditional air conditioner:
This summer, the air conditioner Europeans are scrambling to buy solves a real pain point.
With climate change, regulation and manufacturing all coming together, Chinese manufacturing was perfectly placed to seize the moment.
这个夏天，欧洲人抢的那台空调，解决的是真实痛点。把气候、规则和制造业这几个条件凑在一起，中国制造恰好抓住了这一次机会。
So that’s what we’re exploring this week!
Favourite Five
1. 酷热 kù rè
extreme heat, scorching heat
这场史无前例的酷热中，一款来自中国的移动空调正在全欧洲被疯抢 - During this unprecedented heatwave, a portable air conditioner from China is being snapped up across Europe. [3]
Related:
严酷 yán kù – harsh, severe
炎热 yán rè – hot, sweltering
2. 脱销 tuō xiāo
to sell out, be out of stock
制冷效果又接近分体机，所以近日在欧洲大暑天时脱销并走红 - Its cooling performance is close to that of a split-system air conditioner, so it has been selling out everywhere and become a sensation during Europe’s heatwave. [2]
Related:
售罄 shòu qìng – sold out
卖断货 mài duàn huò – to sell out completely
3. 卡 bug kǎ bug
to exploit a loophole, to game the system
这种极致的产品定义被戏称为“卡bug”，有网友调侃称：“美的的外贸、法务和设计团队都该集体加年终奖。” - This is product design at its finest, which has been jokingly called “gaming the system”. One netizen joked, Midea’s global, legal and design teams all deserve a hefty year-end bonus. [1]
4. 话题度 huà tí dù
level of public attention, buzz
在这轮抢购狂潮中，美的PortaSplit无疑是话题度最高的单品 - In the latest buying frenzy, Midea’s PortaSplit was undoubtedly the product generating the most buzz. [1]
5. 避暑神器 bì shǔ shén qì
summer lifesaver, ultimate cooling gadget
中国企业推出易安装的移动分体式空调，最近被欧洲人视作“避暑神器”而卖爆 - The easy-to-install portable split air conditioner produced by a Chinese company has recently become a must-have summer lifesaver in Europe and is selling like crazy. [2]
💡 Want to close the gap between your rusty textbook Chinese and the real thing? 💡
The RTM Plus membership will help you do just that.
It gives you the tools, resources, and content you need to getg motivated, build a habit, and make real progress.
It including podcasts, app integrations, and much more and is ideal if your Chinese was once strong but has got rusty.
And you want to get your confidence back.
All while staying on top of what people in China are actually talking about right now.
Consuming the Conversation
Useful words
6. 炙烤 zhì kǎo
to scorch, to bake (under intense heat)
超过一亿欧洲人面临35°C以上的炙烤 - More than 100 million people in Europe are facing scorching temperatures above 35°C. [1]
7. 溢价 yì jià
premium, markup
二手溢价一度达原价2-3倍 - At one point, it was trading at a 200–300% premium on the second-hand market. [1]
8. 制冷 zhì lěng
to cool, refrigeration
全球“需要制冷天数增幅最大”的10个国家中，有8个位于西北欧 - Of the ten countries with the most significant increase in the number of days requiring cooling, eight are in Northwestern Europe. [1]
9. 踩线 cǎi xiàn
to toe the line, stay just within the limits
面对这些壁垒，PortaSplit几乎做到了逐条“踩线”过关 - Faced with these barriers, PortaSplit managed to meet almost every requirement by staying just within the limits. [1]
10. 热泵 rè bèng
heat pump
它还搭载了空气源热泵技术 - It is also equipped with air-source heat pump technology. [1]
11. 爆单 bào dān
to receive a flood of orders, surge in orders
亚洲空调军团正在欧洲集体爆单 - Asian air conditioner manufacturers are experiencing a surge of orders across Europe. [3]
12. 爆红 bào hóng
to become an overnight sensation, go viral
这个网站在社交媒体上迅速爆红 - This website quickly went viral on social media. [3]
13. 痛点 tòng diǎn
pain point, key challenge
它需要对海外市场痛点的深刻洞察 - It requires a deep understanding of the pain points in overseas markets. [3]
