The local market of big home appliances, such as refrigerators, freezers and chest freezers, washing machines and dishwashers, dryers, freestanding stoves, built-in ovens, cooktops, hoods and microwave ovens amounted to about 656,000 units last year, more than 10,000 fewer than in 2010.
Romanian consumers remain cautious and prefer to buy only if they really need to. Refrigerators and washing machines are only replaced when they stop working and not when a new, higher-performance model is released, writes BUSINESS Magazin.
The surveys conducted by the European Committee of Domestic Equipment Manufacturers (CECED) about the products released on the Romanian market by its members show that the market is still in decline, said Tone Prislan, managing director of Slovenian home appliances maker Gorenje in Romania.
He says that with the significant decline in the purchasing power of Romanians, potential customers will mainly buy home appliances in the last two quarters of the year only, chiefly because they depend on the money arriving from the Romanians working abroad, as well as the high upkeep costs during the winter.
Another trend he noticed on the market, seriously affected by the difficult economy over the last three years, is that the main growth drivers of home appliances sales are the interior furnishings projects, which led to a significant increase in sales of built-in appliances. During crisis periods, he added, people tend to store more food, so that sales of freezers and chest freezers go up, as well.
Whereas Romanian consumers could afford impulse buys during the boom years, things took a different course in 2009.
After three years of crisis, no one on the large home appliances market can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Some segments did post growth, by as much as 20% in some cases. These segments are among the smallest in terms of both volume and value such as dryers (9.21%), dishwashers (22.44%) or microwave ovens (28.93%) according to CECED data.
This can be explained by the very low penetration rate of such products in Romania, as people in this country are just starting to buy such things for their homes. They accounted for much less of the market than its three basic segments, refrigerators, stoves and washing machines. The three went down in volume in 2011 but there is room for growth.
Giuseppe Parma, who has been running the local operations of Indesit, said a month ago that the penetration rate stood at 90% for refrigerators and stoves and at 70% for washing machines in Romania, among the lowest in the region.
He explained that this low penetration rate of washing machines was due to many homes not having running water. Until this changes, many households will not be able to use washing machines.
The large home appliances sector reached EUR328 million last year, up 4.1% on 2010, driven by sales of washing machines, refrigerators, cooktops and dishwashers, said Mioara Bolozan Whirlpool Romania’s marketing manager.
What does 2012 have in store? Manufacturers and retailers alike hope for growth.
Gorenje Romania’s Tone Prislan thinks the market can go anywhere from -1% to +5% with a steady growth of built-in appliance sales.
Whirlpool’s Mioara Bolozan believes the large appliances market will see moderate growth of 5% to 7%. Indesit’s Giuseppe Parma, too, sees the market go up.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)