However, the Romanian market lags behind in terms of the average expense per capita, as a Romanian in 2013 spent EUR85 on electro-IT products, around three times less than a Czech, almost twice as low as a Hungarian and eight times less than a German.
“The Romanian electro-IT market will continue to grow in 2014, posting an advance of at least 3%-4%. The world football championships will be the main event driving the market higher, but shopping events gaining in popularity each year will also aid it,” says Catalin Tanase, consumer electronics division manager with Domo, a company with 94 stores and sales of EUR160 million in 2013.
As a matter of fact, Black Friday-type events were the ones that propelled the market to EUR1.7 billion last year. The fourth quarter was the best of the past five years for the domestic market as sales rose by around 11%.
The electro-IT market was one of the hardest hit during the crisis, which wiped out almost half of its value. Thus, while in 2008 Romanians spent EUR2.5 billion on electro-IT products, in 2009 the market had slid to EUR1.4 billion and continued to contract in the following years.
However, there were certain product categories, such as smartphones and tablets that did not decline, but, on the contrary, registered ongoing increases. The growth also came as they target people with above-average incomes. They posted increases in 2013 as well, leading the ranking of best sales.
During the boom years, the electro-IT market boasted solid growth, even of as much as 20%, supported by consumer lending, 70% of sales were loan-fueled. Today, the weight goes to 20%, but there is a strong upward trend.
There is still room for growth on the Romanian electro-IT market as it lags in Europe in terms of the penetration level of electro-IT products.
“The market has a high growth potential on the one hand due to the still low penetration of electro-IT products and on the other hand as part of the products now present in households need to be replaced. Thus, I believe the market will go up by 7%-8% this year, similar with last year’s pace,” says Violeta Luca, vice-president and chief executive officer of eMag, the biggest retailer on the Romanian e-commerce market.
The most dynamic categories will be smartphones, which will post lower growth than last year, though, tablets and TV sets. White goods, led by incorporable appliances (15%) and washing machines (8%), were last year’s surprise and Luca believes the trend is set to continue this year.
The trend of the domestic electro-IT market in general and of the electric home appliances in particular is set both by the overall economic landscape and the development of the real estate market. The increase of electro-IT product consumption is also tied to infrastructure investments, taking into account for instance the penetration of such products in rural areas.
This underdevelopment of the domestic market is in fact what is sustaining the advance of the electro-IT market, as less than 80% of households have a washing machine, just 36.5% have a microwave oven and 6% a dishwasher.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)