Gree chairwoman Dong Mingzhu’s live streaming debut on Kuaishou snags sales of US$44 million in three hours

Gree Electric Appliances chairwoman Dong Mingzhu, known as the mainland’s “home appliances queen”, sold 310 million yuan (US$43.8 million) of goods in a three-hour live streaming event on short video platform Kuaishou on Sunday, showing the power of the sales channel in China.

The event, which started at 7:30pm, attracted 16 million viewers in total and saw Dong introduce an air purifier aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19 and a juicing cup. The live-streaming session featured other internet celebrities who introduced more products from the Zhuhai-based Gree.

“We need to boost domestic demand and hope to use live streaming to promote sales, which seems to bring a new market,” Dong said in a post on her official WeChat account on Monday. “Gree has more than 30,000 offline distributors and I hope they can combine online and offline [sales channels]. I just started off by exploring the way for them.”

Gree, China’s biggest air-conditioner maker, earlier reported a 50 per cent drop in revenue and a 72.5 per cent drop in net profit in the first three months of 2020 year-on-year, with offline retailers hit particularly hard by the coronavirus outbreak. Many shopping malls and stores in China closed during recent months and most consumers stayed at home amid lockdowns and social distancing measure to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Sales during the live streaming session – which has become a powerful sales channel even for traditional industries as more people consume online – hit 100 million yuan in half an hour and reached 310 million yuan over the three-hour broadcast, according to data from Kuaishou.