Its revenue stood at 422.5 million lei (EUR94 million) in 2014, down 6.5% on 2013.
Electrolux acquired cooker manufacturer Samus in Satu Mare, northern Romania, in 1997 and is one of the foreign companies that saved Romania’s home appliances manufacturing industry along with Arctic and Philips.
The largest company on this market is Turkey’s Arcelik-held Arctic, while Philips climbed to the second place last year, leaving Electrolux behind. The only Romanian-owned home appliances manufacturer left is Electroarges (vacuum cleaners) in Curtea de Arges.
Electrolux accounts for 19% of the refrigeration appliances sales in Romania each year, half the market share of Arctic, with its two brands, Arctic and Beko, made in Gaesti. It also operates on other market segments such as cookers and washing machines.
Electrolux’s revenue has not increased much in the past six years and even stagnated at a little more than EUR100 million. Its revenue includes both the appliances manufactured and sold in Romania and those exported. It sales in Romania include both the output of the Satu Mare plant and the products imported from its other plants.
The stagnation in the past few years was partly because of the crisis, which made consumers more reluctant to spending on replacing their household appliances, but may also signal peak production capacity being reached.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)