China's Haier profit rises 12.8% in 2016

QINGDAO - China's leading home appliance maker Haier announced Saturday that its profits in 2016 jumped 12.8 percent year-on-year to 20.3 billion yuan ($2.94 billion).

Haier rang up global sales worth 201.6 billion yuan (about $29.2 billion) last year, with a year-on-year growth of 6.8 percent, said Zhou Yunjie, president of Haier, in the company's annual meeting.

Haier is dismantling its traditional corporate structure in favor of an open service where people can bring in their own ideas and resources to develop new products and services, said Zhang Ruimin, Haier chairman.

Attracting 1,333 venture capital firms, Haier's new approach has helped 3,600 entrepreneurial teams get their ideas up and running. Inside Haier, the value assessment of 16 small startups have been valued at 100 million yuan each, said Zhou.

Haier accounts for 10.3 percent of worldwide home appliance sales, according to a 2016 survey by Euromonitor.