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JOURNEY · DETAIL
Dong Mingzhu & Gree: From Grassroots Salesperson to the Air Conditioning Queen's Channel Turbulence
Founded: Dong Mingzhu (Not a founding shareholder; joined in 1990 and gradually took power; the company's predecessor was Zhuhai Gree Electric formed in 1991) · Gree Electric Appliances, Inc. of Zhuhai
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryEnergy
RegionChina
ScaleGiant
ChannelOther
Origin
In 1990, 36-year-old Dong Mingzhu headed south to Zhuhai years after her husband passed away, joining the then-obscure Haili Air Conditioning Factory (Gree's predecessor) as a grassroots salesperson. Her first task was to recover debts from distributors. By breaking the industry's custom of credit sales with 'cash-before-goods,' she achieved sales exceeding 16 million yuan in Anhui province alone in 1992, accounting for one-eighth of the company's total sales at the time. As a result, she was recalled to headquarters, rising through the ranks to head of the sales department due to her sales performance and iron-fisted personal style, eventually succeeding Zhu Jianghong.
Milestones
1990
Grassroots Sales PMF
In 1990, Dong Mingzhu joined Haili Air Conditioning Factory as a salesperson. Her first assignment was to recover 420,000 yuan in debt in Anhui, which took over 40 days to recover. In 1992, her sales in Anhui province alone reached 16 million yuan, accounting for about one-eighth of the company's total sales at the time, verifying the feasibility of the 'cash-before-goods plus regional deep distribution' model. This phase lasted from 1990 to 1992.
1994
Stepping Up in Crisis Turning Point
In 1994, an internal crisis occurred at Gree as salespeople collectively defected. Dong Mingzhu was unanimously elected as the head of the business department. After taking over, she cleaned up the sales system, rejected threats from large distributors, and implemented off-season and year-end rebate policies. In 1995, Gree's air conditioner production and sales leaped to first place nationwide, securing the industry's top spot for years to come. This phase lasted from 1994 to 1995.
2004
Channel Game Inflection Point
In 2004, GOME's Chengdu store significantly cut prices on Gree air conditioners without consulting Gree. Dong Mingzhu ordered Gree to withdraw from GOME stores, and Gree turned to building its own exclusive store channel system. Although GOME later resumed supplies, Gree had already established an independent channel of over 20,000 franchise stores. This rupture became a landmark event for the home appliance manufacturing industry fighting against chain retailers.
2012
Succession and Peak Growth
In 2012, Zhu Jianghong retired, and Dong Mingzhu became Chairwoman of Gree Group and President of Gree Electric Appliances. That year, Gree Electric's operating revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time, making it the first 100-billion-yuan enterprise in the air conditioning industry. She subsequently set a target to increase revenue by 20 billion yuan annually, reaching approximately 120 billion yuan in revenue in 2013.
2013
The Billion-Yuan Bet Inflection Point
In December 2013, at the CCTV China Economic Figures of the Year awards ceremony, Lei Jun proposed that if Xiaomi's revenue exceeded Gree's within five years, Dong Mingzhu would lose one yuan. Dong Mingzhu immediately raised the stakes to 1 billion yuan. The 2018 financial report revealed Gree's revenue was about 200 billion yuan and Xiaomi's was about 174.9 billion yuan, meaning Dong Mingzhu won the bet. However, in 2019, Xiaomi's revenue of about 205.8 billion yuan surpassed Gree's about 200.5 billion yuan, and the scale gap between the two has continued to widen since then. This phase lasted from 2013 to 2019.
2016
Diversification Setback Failure
In 2016, Dong Mingzhu pushed for the full acquisition of Zhuhai Yinlong for about 13 billion yuan to enter the new energy vehicle sector. The plan was voted down by the shareholders' meeting, but she personally invested and recruited Wang Jianlin, Liu Qiangdong, and others to invest about 3 billion yuan in Yinlong. Later, Yinlong was hit by asset misappropriation disputes involving former management and deteriorating operations, causing Dong's personal investment to shrink significantly. Gree's smartphone project also failed to gain traction for years, which outsiders view as two major failures in diversification.
2020
Channel Reform Pains Failure
In 2020, Dong Mingzhu personally participated in 13 live-streaming e-commerce sessions, generating about 47.6 billion yuan in sales, but this triggered conflicts of interest with offline distributors. Xu Zifa, the general distributor in Hebei, defected to Philips Air Conditioning in 2022 and took some of the team with him, leading to defection among distributors in multiple regions. Gree was forced to advance direct-sales new retail reforms. By 2024, revenue dropped back to about 190 billion yuan, allowing Midea and Haier to pull ahead. This phase lasted from 2020 to 2024.
2025
Back in the Spotlight Turning Point
In 2025, Gree successively renamed its offline stores 'Dong Mingzhu Health Home,' betting on her personal IP to drive traffic, which sparked controversy over personal binding similar to Wahaha. In February 2026, People's Daily published an exclusive interview emphasizing that manufacturing requires building things screw by screw. Meanwhile, Xiaomi's online air conditioner market share neared the top tier, turning the reversal of fortunes 12 years after the bet into a public focus. This phase lasted from 2025 to 2026.
Turning Points
- After the salesperson mass exodus in 1994, she stepped in during the crisis to take over the business department, rebuilding sales order with rebate policies and cementing the top industry position.
- In 2004, she broke away from GOME to build an exclusive store system, seizing the lifeline of distribution channels from chain retailers.
- After succeeding to leadership in 2012, Gree's revenue broke 100 billion yuan, deeply binding her personal authority with the corporate brand.
- After 2020, she forcefully pushed forward live-streaming and new retail reforms, breaking with the traditional dealer system and triggering channel turbulence.
Failures & Pitfalls
- The 2016 acquisition of Zhuhai Yinlong for 13 billion yuan was voted down by the shareholders' meeting. After heavily investing her own funds, Yinlong suffered an implosion and her investment shrank significantly.
- Multiple generations of Gree smartphones suffered dismal sales, and featuring Dong Mingzhu's profile on the boot screen was mocked, leaving diversification dead in the water.
- The 47.6 billion yuan in sales from 2020 live-streaming was accused of being achieved through channel stuffing by distributors, after which major Hebei distributor Xu Zifa led a defection to Philips.
- After 2019, revenue was overtaken by Xiaomi, and by 2024 Gree's revenue fell back to about 190 billion yuan, while its core air conditioning business faced encroachment by Xiaomi's online market share.
关键成功要素
- Using 'cash-before-goods' to break the industry custom of credit sales, seizing channel initiative from the source of cash flow.
- Binding distributors' interests through off-season and year-end rebates, turning the channel into a community of shared interests.
- Breaking with GOME to build exclusive stores, keeping the lifeline of distribution in her own hands in exchange for two decades of channel stability.
- Strongly binding Dong Mingzhu's personal IP with the Gree brand, leveraging entrepreneurial traffic to offset advertising costs, though also introducing governance risks.
- Insisting on self-research of core components like compressors and motors, supporting the brand narrative of mastering core technology through technological independence.
Lessons
- Channel control is a manufacturing enterprise's second lifeline, but self-built channels will eventually face the e-commerce and direct-sales revolution; the later the reform, the higher the cost.
- Personal IP can save on advertising costs, but tightly binding the entrepreneur's image to the corporate brand magnifies governance and succession risks.
- Winning the revenue bet while losing the trend; relying on a single blockbuster product and channel stuffing cannot resist the cross-border erosion of ecosystem competitors.
- Diversification must respect shareholders and economic cycles; sentimental bets on new energy vehicles and smartphones cost Gree real capital opportunity costs.
- Distributors must be bound by interests while guarding against them becoming too big to fail. The defection of the Hebei distributor shows that channel loyalty is fundamentally an interest calculation.
Core Data
- 2018 Revenue：About 200 billion RMB (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
- 2018 Xiaomi Revenue：About 174.9 billion RMB (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
- 2019 Xiaomi vs Gree Revenue Comparison：20.58 billion vs about 20.05 billion RMB (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
- 2024 Revenue：About 190 billion RMB (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
- 2020 Live-Streaming Sales：About 47.6 billion RMB across 13 sessions (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
- Yinlong Acquisition Proposal Amount：13 billion RMB proposal rejected; personal and joint investment of about 3 billion RMB (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
- Dong Mingzhu's Shareholding Ratio：About 2.01% as of June 2026, making her the largest individual shareholder (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
- 1992 Personal Sales：16 million RMB in Anhui province alone, accounting for about one-eighth of company revenue (publicly available sources, independent verification not conducted)
Competitors / Peers
Gree faces a pincer attack from Midea and Haier in its core air conditioning battlefield: Midea's revenue exceeded 400 billion RMB in 2024, leading across the board through diversification and global M&A; Haier defends its position in refrigeration and laundry while counterattacking in air conditioning using its Casarte high-end brand and Three-Winged-Bird scene ecosystem. Even trickier is Xiaomi, which leverages online cost-effectiveness and ecosystem connectivity to rank near the top in online air conditioner market share. The pursuer from the original bet has turned into a direct home-invader, shifting Gree from an absolute industry leader to a defender.