All of this has been hailed by Chinese media as a win for Made in China goods – a label that is commonly associated with more low-quality, often cheaply made products. <\/p>\n
“The fact that Chinese air conditioners have become a necessity for Europeans is not merely a trade phenomenon, but a microcosm of ‘Chinese-style empowerment’,” reads a commentary by state media outlet People’s Daily.<\/p>\n
In fact, European PortaSplit owners tell the BBC that they were surprised to find out it comes from a Chinese brand.<\/p>\n
“The marketing and design, it was not typical to what I was used to of older Chinese products. It was more modern,” says Scholtysek in Germany. “Also, when I got it, the quality was comparable to what I was used to from Europe or somewhere else.”<\/p>\n
Launched in Germany in 2024, the PortaSplit is advertised on its website as a combination of “German engineering” from Midea’s research centre in Stuttgart with “Italian design”.<\/p>\n
This is part of a “general shift” in the image of Chinese tech products, Scholtysek says, from drone maker DJI to electric vehicle brands.<\/p>\n
And after buying the PortaSplit, Scholtysek even decided to buy shares of Midea stock – a sign of his confidence in the company’s prospects.<\/p>\n
This confidence is also shared by those at Midea. Ralph Kobsik, the general manager of Midea’s Europe operation, told the BBC in a statement that they “see considerable long-term growth potential in Europe”.<\/p>\n
He added that the company would “continuously invest in technologies that meet the specific requirements of European consumers”.<\/p>\n
One of those satisfied consumers is Adrien Olar in France, who recently bought his first air-conditioner: a Midea PortaSplit.<\/p>\n
“This is maybe my first Chinese product,” the 26-year-old says, describing it as a “revolution”. For days before his PortaSplit arrived, he had resorted to squirting water on his face to keep cool at home.<\/p>\n
But those days are behind Olar now: “It’s like going into a fridge when I go into my room. It’s a very, very good difference.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All of this has been hailed by Chinese media as a win for Made in China goods –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-695966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}