Summary
Fisher & Paykel, a Haier Smart Home company, opened its new New Zealand campus in Auckland on 23 October. Signage for both Haier and Fisher & Paykel on the building marks its dual role as Haier Smart Home's Australia and New Zealand regional headquarters and Fisher & Paykel's global headquarters. New Zealand's Minister of Finance, representatives from the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand and the Chinese Consulate-General in Auckland, and Li Huagang, chairman and president of Haier Smart Home, attended the launch.
In his address, Li said the campus would help Fisher & Paykel deepen its high-end positioning and strengthen its global high-end brand status, and would accelerate Haier Smart Home's smart home rollout globally from its Australia and New Zealand base. Founded in 1934, Fisher & Paykel will use the campus to advance two business segments — whole-home solutions and a zero-carbon smart home R&D institute — extending from single products to connected solutions. The campus covers nearly 23,000 square metres and combines offices, research and design.
A 'social kitchen' sits between the office and R&D testing areas. The two-storey, roughly 5,000-square-metre R&D testing centre houses an acoustics laboratory, a materials analysis room and a rapid prototyping workshop, with more than 300 independent test stations, a semi-anechoic chamber with soundproofing and sound-absorbing layers up to 600 millimetres thick, and environmental simulation chambers adjustable from 10°C to 43°C and up to 90 percent humidity. The campus was built on an ecologically restored degraded industrial site, centred on wetland landscaping and incorporating local Māori tribal culture.
The main office building uses a three-storey heavy timber diagrid structure and won the 2023 World Architecture Festival WAFX Building Technology Award. The timber was sourced from New Zealand plantation pine, and the construction phase achieved a net positive carbon benefit of 1,089 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The roof carries 1,159 solar photovoltaic panels, enough to cover the main office building's annual electricity demand, and the project received a gold award from the New Zealand Sustainable Energy Association.
Fisher & Paykel is integrating household electricity use and energy consumption into its overall smart home system, serving the local market and feeding insights back to global markets.
Commentary
The opening of Fisher & Paykel's new campus marks a deeper integration of Haier Smart Home in the Australia and New Zealand market. As a representative of New Zealand's high-end appliance sector, Fisher & Paykel has strong local brand recognition, with products known for design and durability. Since Haier took a controlling stake in 2012, it has continued to invest in R&D and manufacturing.
Combining the regional headquarters and global headquarters strengthens Auckland's position as an R&D and strategic centre. For local small and medium-sized enterprises, supply chain opportunities are worth watching: the campus emphasises local timber, ecological restoration and Māori cultural integration, which could drive demand in construction, renewable energy and smart home integration. At the same time, Haier is using Australia and New Zealand as a testbed for smart homes and feeding results back to the global market, meaning local technology and service providers have a chance to join a multinational innovation chain.
However, large multinational integration may squeeze the space available to smaller brands in the high-end market, particularly in channel and talent competition. Fisher & Paykel's shift to connected solutions also requires local dealers and installers to improve their digital service capabilities to adapt to the whole-home smart trend.
Keywords: Fisher & Paykel, Haier Smart Home, New Zealand campus, Auckland, Li Huagang, zero-carbon smart home, smart home, World Architecture Festival WAFX Award, solar photovoltaic, globalisation
Source: Economic and Commercial Office of the Ministry of Commerce at the Consulate-General in Auckland
Disclaimer: This article is compiled from publicly available sources for general information only. The analysis and commentary are editorial opinions. MiDeer Observer does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided. Readers should seek independent professional advice before relying on this content, or contact us for more information.
