The strong growth in the sales of the home appliance retail chains following the introduction of the hire purchase has also influenced their main suppliers, i.e. the producers.
World's leading home appliances maker, Swedish Electrolux Group, saw its turnover on the Romanian market double in the first six months of this year.
"The sales trend had been positive since the beginning of the year and was later deeply influenced by the emergence and broadening of the consumer credits, which have become more and more affordable for the clients," the company's officials said.
Electrolux Romania's turnover amounted to 1,674bn ROL (some $50 million), 94% more than in the corresponding period of last year, a corporate release shows. Electrolux holds a cooker factory in Romania, the Samus Satu Mare, and also distributes imported home appliances.
"The sales of the Satu Mare factory have gone up on both the domestic and the international market," Carmen Georgescu, Electrolux Romania PR and marketing manager told Ziarul Financiar. She added the sales of imported products witnessed an upward trend, as well, given that the company's most important clients are the home appliance retail chains. The sales in instalments boom led to home appliance retailers such as Altex, Flanco or Domo announcing surges in their respective first-half turnovers.
Romanian producer Arctic in its turn doubled turnover in the first half to 1,221bn ROL.
Electrolux bought the Samus factory in late 1997. The Swedish group last year announced plans to double cooker output at its Satu Mare-based facility within two years and to relocate part of the cooker production from three European countries to Romania. It invested some 2.9 million euros in Samus in the first six months of 2003, after having invested 4.4 million euros last year. The Satu Mare facility is now making Electrolux and Zanussi cookers for the domestic market, as well as other brands of the group that are exported. After all, 80% of the output gets exported. bogdan.neagu@zf.ro
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
