Midea: a Champion Chinese Home Appliance Manufacturer Locating Its Innovative Institutions Worldwide

          In April this year, Midea launched its European R&D and Innovation Center in Austria. At the same time, its Emerging Technology Center opened and started operating in Silicon Valley, the United States.

          Midea Group has by now owned 17 R&D centers, over 60 overseas branches, 10,000 researchers, and 300 foreign experts in eight countries. Like Huawei, a leading global information and communication technology (ICT) solutions provider based in China, which has established 36 joint innovation centers all over the world, Midea has also become a representative Chinese brand which has taken a leading position of innovation in this area.

          In line with its globalization strategy, the Midea Group has been accelerating its pace to attract top scientific and technological personnel globally. The "Midea Star" program, launched in 2016, recruits top talents from the world's top 100 universities, especially the experts in Artificial Intelligence, with an attractive  offer of an annual salary package of over one millionChina yuan and an encouraging policy of rapid promotion within three years.

          Relying on its global intellectual resources, Midea's Global Innovation Center, located in Foshan, Guangdong, has became a new highland of science and technology innovation among manufactory enterprises worldwide. This large R&D base, with an accumulated investment of 30 billion yuan, covers an area of 260,000 square meters, and accommodates more than 10,000 people, for independent research and development as well as innovation. Great breakthroughs have been made here in cutting-edge fields with big market prospective, such as the artificial intelligence, materials and coatings, water treatment, service robots, smart homes, nutrition and health services.

          Statistics show that in the past five years, Midea has invested more than 20 billion yuan in research and development, ranking first in the field of home appliances innovation in Thomson Reuters' report. In 2016, the overseas revenue of Midea exceeded 64.01 billion yuan, accounting for 43.5% of its total revenue, an increase of 29.53% year on year.

          "Midea is committed to building a world-class technology manufacturing enterprise with a first-class R&D team, and to making advanced products comprehensively in five years," said Dr. Hu Ziqiang, vice president, Chief Technology Officer of Midea Group and president of Midea Corporate Research Center.

          SOURCE: Midea Group

          AsiaNet 68832