Who Owns Midea & Where Are Its Appliances Made?

When the average U.S. consumer thinks of home appliances, the first brands that come to mind generally include traditional players like GE, LG, Samsung, and Whirlpool. Over the past decade, however, several Chinese brands have tried making inroads into the U.S. market. A name that people have been increasingly hearing in this space is Midea. While still considered a "value" brand in the U.S., its products regularly make it into SlashGear's list of most reliable air conditioners and high-quality yet cheap dishwashers.

However, what most people do not know is that Midea, with $56 billion in revenue, is actually one of the largest home appliance companies on the planet. The company was founded in 1968 by He Xiangjian, but is today a publicly listed company overseen by a board of directors and senior management.

Midea's home-appliance business is part of the company's Smart Home Business Unit that makes everything the average customer knows Midea for — refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and kitchen appliances. However, Midea as a group is much bigger than just home appliances. The company is involved in several other sectors, including industrial automation, robotics, commercial HVAC systems, and even healthcare technology. Because of this wide range of businesses, Midea has a large network of production plants and research and development (R&D) centers around the world. The company says it operates a total of 43 manufacturing facilities spread across different countries, in addition to 33 R&D sites. 

The only catch is that Midea does not clearly indicate which factories belong to which business line. Nevertheless, while the number of facilities that make consumer appliances might be smaller than the total mentioned here, Midea's website does indicate that it operates 40+ 'production centers' across the globe.

While Midea has gone global in the past few years, the company's operations still heavily rely on its Chinese infrastructure. This can be judged from the fact that 21 of the 43 manufacturing facilities operated by Midea are located within China.

That being said, Midea has been investing in production facilities in other countries too, with Thailand — which has four Midea factories — coming in at number two. Midea's South American operations are dependent on the company's three manufacturing plants spread across Brazil. The list of countries where Midea operates two manufacturing plants is rather long. These countries include Egypt, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Vietnam. Equally long is the list of nations with at least one Midea manufacturing facility. Aside from the U.S., other nations that have a Midea manufacturing plant within their borders include Hungary, India, Argentina, and Indonesia.

Interestingly, while on its website Midea lists the U.S. as a country with at least one manufacturing unit, the company's known facilities there include its headquarters in Parsippany, NJ, and an R&D center in Kentucky. Additionally, despite the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, Midea has been expanding its presence in the U.S. of late. The company's most recent expansion announcement came in 2024 when it confirmed that it would increase the scale of operations at Midea's U.S. R&D facility at Blankenbaker Station in Louisville, Kentucky.