Haier Europe’s annual 1 Vision Conference took place last week, in front of a packed auditorium in the Rum Warehouse Liverpool.

The conference celebrated the growth of the company’s three brands; Candy, Hoover and Haier, as well as outlining its new initiative with Octopus Energy which offers consumers the lowest cost per wash cycle at 5p per wash.

The conference – the theme for which was ‘dream, believe, achieve’ – was opened by David Meyerowitz, Haier Europe’s CEO for the UK and Ireland. He said: “We are the world’s favourite domestic appliance manufacturer. Haier is the enabler of dreams.”

Mr Meyerowitz spoke about the company’s 170 factories, selling to 160 countries, with one billion customers, 100,000 employees, 4,000 micro-enterprises and 140,000 retail partners.

He also stated that by 2025, 100 of Haier Europe’s sales will be connected appliances. He added: “These products will focus on the ultimate user experience.”

ERT Editor, Jack Cheeseman, was at the Conference. You can watch his highlights video of the event on ERT’s LinkedIn page.

CEO of Haier Europe, Yannick Fierling, also took to the stage. He said: “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.

“Every one in five fridges, wine coolers, washers, dryers are in a Haier products. And so 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.”

Haier also announced two new vacuums would be coming out this year and will be “revolutionary in its style and capabilities”. As well as this, the company will be entering the small kitchen appliance marketplace. Dave Matthews, ME Leader in Small Domestic Appliances, announced later this year Haier will unveil its Series 5 range of SDA.

The head of IoT ecosystems at Haier Europe, Leon Doyle, also announced that “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.”

Mr Doyle also explained that through the extensive analysis of data driven insights it become evident that existing customers were actively reducing temperatures and shortening their laundry cycles in response to the cost-of-living crisis.