How Haier is using AI and sustainability to shake up Europe’s appliance market

Breaking into Europe’s crowded home appliance market isn’t for the faint-hearted. As Neil Tunstall, CEO of Haier Europe, told me after launching the next generation of home appliances at IFA 2025. The sector is brutally capital-intensive, product life cycles are shrinking, and consumers are more cautious than ever with their spending. If you want to compete at scale, you have to spend big and think bigger.

“Life cycles are shortening. If you don’t invest, you quickly become uncompetitive,” Tunstall said. “It’s like the car industry — unless you’re a niche cooking brand, you can’t really survive without size and scale.”

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A post-pandemic squeeze

The market hasn’t exactly been booming. After the COVID-era rush to kit out kitchens during lockdowns, sales tailed off. Many in the industry expected demand to bounce back, but stubborn inflation, geopolitical uncertainty and low consumer confidence — particularly in Europe — have kept things flat.

“There’s nowhere in Europe where I can say the market is booming,” Tunstall admitted. “It ranges from okay to really terrible.”

With growth hard to find, Haier’s strategy is clear: win market share. The company is still something of a newcomer in Europe, and breaking through requires more than glossy TV ads. Instead, Haier is leaning on high-profile sponsorships, from Liverpool FC to PSG, and using social platforms to connect with fans. “It’s about associating your brand with something people care about. Twenty years ago, you’d just run an ad on ITV. Now it’s about digital, social, influencers — and even footballers cooking on Instagram.”

Designing for different lifestyles

But flashy marketing only works if the products land. For Haier, that means rethinking how it designs appliances. Traditional segmentation based on age or family size doesn’t cut it anymore. “It’s all about lifestyle, passions and interests,” Tunstall explained. “You’re not just designing for a 35-year-old with two kids. You’re designing for someone who’s passionate about wine, or wants to monitor their pet, or cares about sustainability.”

Connectivity plays a big role here. Smart appliances allow Haier to target “use cases” rather than generic needs. A fridge that knows how to preserve wine, or an oven that recognises a chicken versus beef, creates experiences that feel personal rather than one-size-fits-all.

“Nice” AI

Artificial intelligence, predictably, is front and centre. But instead of pitching AI as futuristic wizardry, Tunstall wants to position it as helpful, approachable and — in his words — “nice.”

“Consumers don’t say, ‘I want AI.’ They just want something that works,” he said. “If AI means they don’t have to remember whether cotton washes at 40 or 60, and it just gets the laundry right every time, that’s not scary AI. That’s nice AI.”

Cooking is a prime target. With almost infinite variety and complexity, it’s the perfect area for AI to simplify decisions and even elevate results. “We can help people who aren’t skilled in the kitchen cook restaurant-quality meals. That opens up better nutrition and more variety for families.”

Over-the-air (OTA) updates mean appliances can evolve long after purchase. Instead of being locked to six preset programs, smart washing machines and ovens can gain new functions on the fly — tailored to niche needs or emerging trends.

Sustainability is the bigger game

Beyond AI, sustainability looms as the industry’s biggest challenge — and opportunity. Haier has committed to cutting emissions by 50% and is already sourcing 60% of its energy from renewables in Europe. Every factory roof is being fitted with solar panels, and the company is pushing to reduce waste in production.

But the real breakthrough, Tunstall argued, will come from embedding energy intelligence directly into appliances. Washing machines, fridges and heat pumps that automatically run when renewable energy is plentiful could collectively save billions of kilowatt-hours worldwide.

“That’s the game changer,” he told me. “It doesn’t rely on consumers remembering to switch things off. It happens behind the scenes, and the carbon footprint becomes effectively zero. We’re only scratching the surface now, but in the next five years this has to scale massively.”

To avoid accusations of greenwashing, Haier has joined the Science Based Targets initiative, which requires companies to set and track concrete sustainability goals. “For years, every CEO has said, ‘We’re going to be green.’ The difference is measuring it, setting near-term targets, and holding ourselves accountable,” Tunstall said.

For Haier, the path forward is clear: double down on investment, use AI to simplify lives, and build appliances that actively shrink the world’s carbon footprint. In a sector where survival depends on scale, Tunstall is betting that this mix of technology, partnerships and sustainability will be enough to shift the balance in Haier’s favour.

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