Swedish home appliances maker Electrolux sold 105 million euros' worth on the Romanian market last year, up 80% from the year before.
The growth was based, as explained by Electrolux Romania's marketing manager Carmen Georgescu on the lending boom.
"The sales in instalments were those that allowed us to achieve such record growth," Georgescu says. She added it was not about growth for certain product categories, but an overall market surge.
"Every segment of the home appliances market increased last year, so that our sales on these segments implicitly went up," Georgescu explains.
The increase in Electrolux' sales also came from the new market segments, which became accessible due to the hire purchase systems.
"We launched a line of dryers last year, a new product for the Romanian market and the results were very good," Electrolux Romania official said.
Forecasts for this year are much more "conservative" than last year.
"I think the home appliances market will grow this year, though by only 10 or 15 percent. I cannot say how much will the Electrolux sales in Romania increase, though," Georgescu added.
The Swedish group is the leader of the Romanian cooker market, through the Zanussi brand, made at Electrolux' factory in Satu Mare.
"We are well-positioned on the "frost" segment and on the vacuum cleaner segment in Romania. Furthermore, we launched the first digital display Electrolux washing machines last year, which consolidated our position on the washing machine segment," Electrolux officials specified without going into details as to the actual market share on those segments.
The Swedish company entered the Romanian market at the end of 1995, when it opened its sales division in Bucharest. Electrolux became majority shareholder of Samus SA (Satu Mare) in December 1997 when it bought the controlling interests (97%) in the company. Early in 2000, the Swedish group bought more shares, so that it now owns over 99% in Samus.
Electrolux has invested 14.3 million euros in its cooker factory in Satu Mare, primarily in boosting the production capacity, in environment protection, in new product development.
The Swedes have transferred part of the cooker production from countries such as Italy or Sweden to Romania, with the production capacity reaching 700,000 units last year, most of which were exported.
ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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