A TCL stand in a home appliance mall in Shanghai in December 2018 Photo: VCG

Wuhan, a major home appliance manufacturing base in Central China's Hubei Province, has kicked off the restart button to make home appliances as the city is about to lift its two-month lockdown on April 8.

The factories of the leading home appliance enterprises in Wuhan have resumed operation.

The Wuhan factory of electrical appliance manufacturer Midea Group resumed work on March 24. As of Sunday, 95 percent of the employees of its air conditioning plant in Wuhan had returned to work and productivity is expected to reach 100 percent by April 10, according to its official Weibo account.

The air conditioning plant, water heater plant and freezer plant of home appliances company Haier Group Corp in Wuhan have prepared for work resumption. The employee return rate at its freezer plant in Wuhan has reached 85 percent, said its official Weibo account. 

The household appliance industry has basically recovered on the production and supply side as most enterprises have stepped up the resumption of production since middle of March when zero new infections were reported in most places in Hubei Province, according to the China Household Electrical Appliances Association.

"Compared with the initial stage of work resumption, the supply disruptions involving raw materials and accessories have been significantly alleviated," a person in charge of the association told the Global Times on Tuesday.

But stalled market demand has become a new problem facing the enterprises, according to the association.

"It is expected that in the first quarter of 2020, the domestic home appliance retail market will decline significantly year-on-year, which makes the boosting of domestic consumption an urgent problem facing the enterprises," the person said.

According to a survey by the Global Times, many of Wuhan's home appliance physical retail outlets reopened starting this week. 

A Wuhan branch of GOME Electrical Appliances, one of the largest privately owned electrical appliance retailers, just opened on Tuesday.

"Mobile phones, electronic products, small electrical appliances like rice cookers sell well," a clerk on duty told the Global Times on Tuesday. "We've made around 10 deals this morning." 

Currently the store is open from 10 am to 5 pm with employees taking shifts to go to work. Customers are allowed in after having their temperatures checked, and guided to different floors to avoid congestion. 

"This is our first day back, and we expect to see a slow recovery in the future," she said.

An employee with Gongmao Home Appliance, one of the biggest home appliances chain stores in Hubei Province, told the Global Times that most customers came to buy necessities.

"Water heaters, rice cookers, small appliances, refrigerators and freezers are among the most popular items as the old ones may have broken during the two-month lockdown," he said. 

In addition to the necessities, some other categories also showed growth. The sales of a number of health sterilization appliances increased by more than 200 percent, and the sales of fresh air systems increased by 1,500 percent year-on-year, according to a report by Suning Commerce Group.

"The demand for electrical appliances is bound to surge but the retail industry may not be able to recover in the short term," Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.