Over 20,000 smart devices are in operation! The AI undertone behind Midea Group (00300)'s record high performance in the first half of the year

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on August 28, Midea Group (00300) released its 2026 interim results report, achieving both revenue and net profit growth for six and a half years in a row. Among them, total operating income was 261.05 billion yuan, up 3.5% year on year; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 26.45 billion yuan, up 1.7% year on year. While its performance reached a new high, the Midea Group is comprehensively promoting the application of AI in the entire value chain of the company's business and continuing to transform into an “AI+ industrial technology group”.

In the first half of 2026, on the basis of stabilizing the leading edge in the white goods industry, commercial and industrial solutions in the fields of robotics, new energy, construction technology, industrial components, medical care, logistics, etc., have become one of the main engines for the continuous growth of Midea Group's business. Among them, revenue from the building technology, robotics and automation businesses increased by more than 10% year-on-year.

According to the interim report data, in the first half of 2026, Midea's domestic market sales share for household air conditioning compressors, household air conditioning motors, and washing machine motors all steadily ranked first; Midea's domestic market sales of central air conditioners accounted for more than 22%, Midea's commercial multi-line domestic sales accounted for more than 29%, and Midea centrifuge units accounted for more than 16% of domestic sales, all ranking first in the industry; KUKA's domestic sales share of domestic market sales of 300kg or more load robots has further expanded. The share surpassed 50%.

Incubate more than 20,000 smart entities to reduce costs and improve efficiency throughout the value chain

In the first half of this year, Midea Group further deepened AI's empowerment of the entire value chain, incubated more than 20,000 smart entities, and achieved cumulative efficiency improvements of more than 9 million hours and cost reductions of more than 9 million hours 4.5 billion yuan.

Front-end R&D: An AI planning platform covering everything from user demand insight to product definition has been created, enabling AI human-machine collaboration in key scenarios and AI replacement of repetitive scenarios, improving single-scene process efficiency by 30%-60%.

Manufacturing: Fourteen core agents replace traditional manual hourly tasks with second-level response. The average efficiency improvement in core scenarios is over 30%, and the response speed of production scheduling is increased by 50%.

Product sales: AI production and marketing intelligence boosts domestic inventory turnover efficiency by 4.4%; the transaction scale for obtaining business opportunities through AI continues to expand; self-developed AI supports the planning and execution of the entire link of overseas business from quotation to shipment, improving overall efficiency by more than 60%.

Supply chain logistics: AI helped improve domestic omni-channel inventory turnover by 10%, increase foreign warehousing efficiency by 35%, reduce overall logistics costs by 8% year on year, and achieve 98% full-link data transparency rate.

User experience: Mevox, the first AI smart device for the home appliance industry, has developed multiple active intelligent household application capabilities in six major systems, including air, water, and cooking, and has served more than 150 million users.

Build four major data centers and actively lay out AIDC related business

At present, the Midea Group has built four major data centers in the world, forming a globally unified data asset system. The total amount of data exceeded 54 PB, the total amount of data assets exceeded 17 PB, and the total number of data services was used more than 6 billion times in the first half of the year, covering more than 50 application scenarios in 8 business fields including domestic sales, export sales, and supply chains.

At the same time, as the scale of computing power rises exponentially, Midea Building Technology, Midea Energy, and Midea Industrial Technology have fully deployed artificial intelligence data centers (AIDC) to support businesses such as temperature control and energy supply. In the first half of this year, Midea Building Technology launched the construction of a liquid-cooled intelligent manufacturing base in Shunde, Foshan. After completion in 2027, it will promote large-scale production of core data center products including maglev cooling sources and energy storage temperature control; the world's first self-developed magnetic levitation CDU has also achieved batch delivery in a large-scale data center in Malaysia; and a tailor-made integrated cooling station solution provides a reliable “cooling base” for the national supercomputing platform of Pengcheng Yunnao.

Currently, Midea Group has participated in data center projects of many leading Internet companies and government agencies, established in-depth cooperation with leading global telecom companies to provide data center temperature control solutions, and signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba to jointly focus on AIDC liquid cooling temperature control technology and build a green computing power base for the AI era.

Furthermore, the humanoid robot developed by the Midea Group is promoting application in multiple scenarios. The superhumanoid robot “Merro U” has been employed in high-end washing machine parks for over 2 months, and has completed more than 100,000 screws; for home and business scenarios, the second-generation high-performance biped full-humanoid robot “Mera X2” developed by Midea Group now has all-terrain and diverse sports capabilities such as anthropomorphic walking, going up and down stairs, running, and dancing, and has achieved a success rate of over 95% in open home task scenarios such as folding towels, storing tables, and organizing sofas.

Mobile split air conditioners are booming in the European market, and overseas OBM accounts for more than 50% of revenue

The Austrian guy drove 200 kilometers overseas to buy, programmers specially developed paid software to track inventory, sold out in many places, and the second-hand price doubled... This summer, Midea's PortasSplit mobile split air conditioner became a phenomenal hit product in the European market. Sales and sales both increased by 200% year-on-year in the first half of the year.

Behind the explosion of PortasSplit, which was jointly developed by the Chinese and European teams, is the success of the American Group's “local for local” localization strategy: in-depth understanding of climatic characteristics, building standards, infrastructure and lifestyle differences in different regions of the world, building a closed loop of R&D, design and sales in target markets, and customized launches that are closer to the needs of local users products.

In North America, America's U-shaped inverter window machines are suitable for double-layer sliding windows in old cities such as New York, and became the top 1 e-commerce window model in the US after launch; in the Middle East, America's customized high-temperature air conditioners can continue to operate stably at extreme temperatures of 70℃, becoming a household retail hit in the Gulf region; in Africa, America's UNICOOL inverter air conditioners can be powered by small generators, suitable for unstable power grids, and became popular in many markets such as West Africa...

Facing overseas markets, Midea Group has established a global R&D, manufacturing and sales network, with 29 overseas R&D centers in 11 overseas countries to integrate global R&D resources; 45 of the world's 68 major production bases are located overseas to achieve global production and delivery; overseas sales account for 43% of total sales, products have been exported to more than 200 countries and regions around the world, have about 5,500 after-sales service outlets, and more than 25,000 overseas retailers have joined the overseas sales platform.

What is more noteworthy is that the Midea Group is moving from “going overseas with products” to “going overseas with systematic capabilities.” In June 2026, the Midea Group released the Midea Overseas Partner Program in Thailand by integrating 72 digital and artificial intelligence solutions, 13 smart devices, and 25 application scenarios, to provide full-cycle full-link support services for overseas Chinese enterprises from 0 to 1 factory construction planning, production line implementation to localized long-term operation. This move also marks the globalization process of manufacturing in China, moving from “scattered production capacity spillover” to a new stage of “systemic capability symbiosis”.

The stock price reached a record high and reached the top of the “repurchase king” in A-share history

Rapid business development, overseas breakthroughs, and improvements in the full value chain capabilities brought about by AI have also provided a solid foundation for Midea Group to continue to return to shareholders. Since its listing in 2013, Midea Group's cumulative cash payments have exceeded 170 billion yuan, with dividends per share increasing by more than 330% in the past ten years; since 2026, Midea Group has repurchased 9.5 billion yuan of A-share shares. By the end of June, historical stock repurchases had exceeded 45 billion yuan, making it the company with the highest cumulative repurchase amount in A-share history; in addition, Midea Group has been favored by insurance funds, and insurance funds such as China Life Insurance, Ping An Insurance, and Taiping Insurance have entered the top ten shareholders.

Since this year, the A-share price of Midea Group once rose to 88.95 yuan/share (previous reinstatement price), a record high; the H-share price once rose to HK$99.75 per share (previous reinstatement price), a record high since Midea Group was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

In the “Fortune Global 500 Ranking” published by “Fortune” in 2026, Midea Group ranked 231st, up 15 places from last year, and ranked among the world's top 500 companies for 11 consecutive years.