Exports accounted for a greater share of the revenue than the local market in 2013 for the first time ever.
“Exports will contribute 55% of the company’s revenue in 2013, beating the local market for the first time. Exports have gone up in the past year while the local market was flat year-on-year,” Gabriel Carlig says.
The newest markets Jolidon added to its list of export destinations are India and Japan, but the company also sells its products to other Asian markets, as well as in Europe, as ZF previously found.
“We have Jolidon stores on some markets, but they are operated by our partners. We no longer have any store of our own outside Romania. We are present only via distributors on other markets.”
Jolidon closed all the stores it owned abroad in countries like Poland, Hungary and France during the crisis to stabilize the business affected by the financial crisis.
“We have no plans to return with our own stores to other markets.”
Jolidon’s sales shrank in the first years of crisis, 2009 and 2010, to almost half the level of the boom years, reaching EUR18.7 million. The business then rebounded on the back of exports mainly.
“We have grown because exports again this year. The revenue will exceed 100 million lei (EUR22.5 million) this year. “
It is, however, far from the level in the last economic boom years, 2007 and 2008.
Jolidon has 84 stores in Romania and Gabriel Carlig says the company has both closed and opened stores this year, without saying how many.
The company launched a new store brand, Prelude, which the owner says is its premium brand, while Jolidon is a mass-market brand. The first Prelude opened in a newly inaugurated mall in northern Bucharest, Promenada.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)