A great variety of electrical and electronic products has been put on the domestic market in China.
However, due to data availability, this report focuses only on the quantities of the major home appliances,
including televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and computers (desktop
and laptop). Figure 2 shows the historical sales data for these five products in the Chinese market.
Annual sales data for these appliances are calculated by adding the total numbers of appliances
manufactured domestically and the total number of appliances imported, and then subtracting the total
number of domestically-produced appliances that were exported. The manufacturing data are derived
from the China National Statistics Yearbooks 1996-2011, while the international trade data are obtained
from the United Nations Comtrade database by tracking the corresponding Harmonized System
Codes for international goods shipments.