Zhongshan veteran entrepreneur's second comeback! With an unassuming car refrigerator, he quietly raked in 5 billion yuan a year!

As the times keep moving forward, user needs continue to evolve and upgrade, and many niche categories once thought unimaginable have now grown into red-hot best-selling tracks.

In earlier years, when gas-powered vehicles dominated the mainstream market, no one could have imagined that cars could be equipped with refrigerators, allowing you to enjoy cold drinks anytime during road trips.

Image source: Google

With the growing popularity of new energy vehicles, in-vehicle refrigerators have become an important differentiating selling point. This feature has continued to expand from high-end models down to household electric cars priced around 150,000 yuan, gradually cultivating usage habits among domestic consumers.

However, at this stage, demand in the domestic market remains relatively limited.In contrast, in overseas markets such as North America, Australia, and Europe, the development of RV and camping culture is more mature.

Among them, the North American market is the global leader in size, with an extremely high penetration rate for car refrigerators. Compared to Asian consumers, North American users are more willing to pay a premium for portable mobile cooling devices that offer large capacity, energy efficiency, and low noise.

Image source: Google

The robust overseas demand has also given rise to enormous market opportunities.

And China, as the largest production base for car refrigerators,Nearly half of the world's production capacity is concentrated in the Zhongshan and Pearl River Delta regions of China., perfectly catering to the supply and demand of overseas markets, and also nurturing many overseas-expanding brands focused on this track.

What we're going to talk about todayICECO, is a highly representative case among them.

From establishing a joint venture that leveraged European technology with Chinese manufacturing to go global as an OEM, to founding an independent brand and embarking on a global DTC brand journey.Growing against the trend all the way, it has become a top industry seller with annual sales exceeding 5 billion!

Next, let's walk through together: how did ICECO step by step open up and smooth its path to global development?

Image source: Google

Breaking Out of the Downturn: Divesting Non-Core Assets, Betting on Mobile Refrigeration

According to public information, Mr. Shi, the founder of the ICECO brand, joined Hong Kong-listed company Kelon Electrical after graduating from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 1997.

In 2000, he met the founder of IndelB, the pioneer of global car refrigerators, through business dealings. That encounter laid a crucial foundation for their future collaboration.

In 2005, the two parties reached a cooperation agreement and established a joint venture, IndelB, in Zhongshan. In the early stages of development, the company primarily OEM-produced car refrigerators for IndelB, leveraging Europe's mature technology combined with China's manufacturing advantages to enter overseas markets.

Thanks to its clear market positioning, the company's scale expanded rapidly. By 2012, the number of offline stores in China had exceeded 1,000. It also successfully secured a partnership order with Mercedes-Benz, officially launching its passenger vehicle supporting business.

Image source: Google

However, between 2013 and 2015, the company encountered a severe crisis.

Due to Mr. Shi's cross-sector investments in unfamiliar fields such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals, capital was continuously dispersed; combined with external market shocks, a large number of offline stores were closed, the team was reduced, and the company's development fell into a trough.

A turning point came in 2016. At that time, the new energy vehicle market was experiencing rapid growth, and car owners' demand for in-vehicle refrigeration continued to rise. Mr. Shi immediately made a decision to divest all non-core businesses and concentrate resources on deeply developing the vehicle-mounted mobile refrigeration sector.

In 2019, he formally expanded into overseas business. To distinguish it from the domestic 'Indel B' brand, the independent overseas brand ICECO came into being, and the journey of globalization officially began.

Image source: Google

Tackling core markets such as North America: three strategies to break through the gap

ICECO set its first overseas destination as North America. The local car culture and outdoor camping ecosystem are mature, and there is a huge base of pickup truck owners, RV enthusiasts, and outdoor players, creating a natural demand for car refrigerators.

However, ICECO did not enter the market blindly; instead, it relied on three strategies to precisely break through the market gap.

First, refine products tailored to the scenario

The brand developed car refrigerators that fit the trunk space dimensions of popular models such as Jeep and pickup trucks, and successively launched features such as dual-temperature zones and Bluetooth smart control to meet consumers' diverse needs for partitioned refrigeration and freezing during outdoor trips.

Image source: Google

Second, build a diversified online channel matrix

ICECO first used its Amazon flagship store as the core position, leveraging platform traffic to achieve a rapid start; at the same time, it entered platforms such as Walmart and AliExpress to broaden sales channels and reach a wider outdoor consumer group.

To break free from the constraints of third-party platforms, it also built overseas independent websites. It set up sections according to use scenarios and product capacity, such as off-road pickup trucks, RVs, and short-distance camping, and set up best-seller rankings to prominently feature flagship models.

In addition, the brand attaches great importance to user community operations. It opened a content-sharing section on the site, continuously accumulating UGC materials such as real photos of overseas car owners' modifications and outdoor field tests, thereby enhancing user stickiness to the community.

Image source: ICECO

Third, steadily advance the offline localized layout

ICECO also frequently appeared at events such as the SEMA Las Vegas modification show and Overland Expo North America, directly facing core audiences in pickup modification, RV, and off-road circles. At the same time, it built an overseas physical distribution network and formed supporting partnerships with local RV modification factories.

Image source: TikTok

It is exactly this approach of driving product R&D through scenario-based needs that helped ICECO firmly establish itself in the North American market and continue to expand to regions such as Europe and Australia.

According to industry-related reports, the group's overall sales exceeded 5 billion yuan in 2024; as of the end of 2024, ICECO's cumulative sales of car refrigerators surpassed 2 million units, securing its leading position in the niche sector of vehicle-mounted mobile refrigeration.

Social media marketing: leveraging real scenarios to drive cross-circle communication

Of course, merely polishing products and laying out online and offline omni-channels is far from enough.

As a Chinese brand going overseas, how to reach a vast number of overseas potential consumers, let audiences intuitively perceive product value, and stimulate purchase demand is the key to the brand's long-term growth overseas.

Based on this goal, ICECO places great importance on the social media dissemination value and chooses to output real-use-scenario content on platforms such as TikTok to eliminate consumers' purchasing concerns and continuously expand brand awareness.

Source: TikTok

On TikTok, the brand has collaborated with many vertical influencers in the outdoor field. By letting influencers showcase camping, self-driving and other travel scenarios in real scenes, they directly demonstrate the actual user experience of the product, continuously conveying the practical value of the car refrigerator to users, thereby stimulating users' consumption willingness and driving purchase orders.

For example, influencer @Nikita Crump, who has 975,000 followers, once collaborated with ICECO to release a promotional short video.

Source: TikTok

The video centers on "Car refrigerator reshapes my travel life", recording the influencer's daily life of having an ICECO car refrigerator in the car for a long time. The refrigerator is filled with vegetables, coffee, juice, soda, jam, meat products and other kinds of ingredients and drinks, allowing them to replenish food and drinks anytime, anywhere.

It is precisely such authentic sharing content that attracted a large number of users' attention. The comment section was full of inquiries about product functions and usage details, and it received 372,500 views and 24,400 likes.

It is not hard to see that this kind of real experience content shot on location by influencers is more likely to move potential audiences, attract users to actively learn about the product, and effectively drive conversion.

Source: TikTok

Entering the market now is a good time

With the deepening of the global outdoor camping culture, the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, and consumers' pursuit of the quality of self-driving travel, the demand for portable mobile refrigeration equipment is being further activated.

For domestic enterprises, the industrial conditions for entering this category now are already mature with favorable timing and geographical advantage.

As ICECO has proven:When product, channel, and user operations form a closed loop, Chinese manufacturing can break out of homogeneous competition and establish its own brand voice and find its own explosion point in the global outdoor consumer market.