BSH Household Appliances LLC, the official distributor of Bosch, Siemens and Gaggenau household appliances in Ukraine, expects that the Ukrainian household appliances market (major and small domestic appliances, MDA, SDA) would grow by 10-15% in 2019, BSH Household Appliances Director General Serhiy Maksymov has said.
“The current year is the second year in a row, when the market shows a significant increase. If last year in real terms the increase exceeded 20%, then by the end of January-October 2018 the increase was about 18%, and we hope that this trend will continue until the end of this year,” he told reporters at a press briefing on Tuesday.
Among the factors that determined the growth of the market in the current year, is deferred demand (as in the past), but he said that the increase in credit sales contributed to it.
“The tendency of growth in demand has survived, but many buyers buying on credit were added, and the steady growth of the market was accompanied by a large number of consumer loans that drove the market. Of course, they take more expensive equipment, such as built-in modular one, and the share of credit sales can go up to 50%,” Maksymov said.
According to him, the share of the company’s brands in the current year on the MDA market was about 10%. In the SDA segment, the company lost an aggregate of about 2% due to the withdrawal of the Zelmer brand from the market last year. At the same time, the Bosch brand has significantly increased sales and, in general, the share of the company’s brands in the SDA market is 11-12%.
“For example, Zelmer meat grinders were very famous, but we expanded the range of Bosch meat grinders and they took a good share,” he said.
Maksymov recalled that in the crisis year of 2015, sales of household appliances in Ukraine halved compared with the previous year, and the pre-crisis level of sales has not yet been reached.
“Even if we take into account that by the end of this year the current growth pace of the market will continue, then we will not reach another UAH 200 million to the pre-crisis level,” he said.
The company, citing data from the State Statistics Committee, said that in 2014, the volume of sales of SDA in Ukraine amounted to UAH 4.57 billion, MDA – UAH 9.38 billion.
At the same time, in the opinion of the head of the company, in 2019, with the expected growth pace, the market may exceed this level.
“Now there are fears in the world about the next global crisis, but there is no single trend of its influence on different countries, so we have hope that we are confidently getting out the crisis, which can be called global and which we passed in 2014. And we hope with partners – large networks, that the next year will show a positive trend,” Maksymov said.
Referring to the results of sales on Black Friday, Maksymov said that the growth in the home appliances market was 50% compared with the previous week, and the discount in price for buyers ranged from 20% to 40-50%. According to him, the discounts on equipment were real, the manufacturer and retailers abandoned the margin.
“Sales of refrigerators showed an increase of up to 200%, vacuum cleaners – 179%. Vacuum cleaners are the largest category in the SDA segment (25% share), the second position is the slow cooker, but with 12% share,” he said.
He said that one of the trends in the market is the growing interest of Ukrainians in a healthy lifestyle, which, in particular, determined the growth in sales of stationary blenders (using which one can make smoothies, soups and mashed potatoes), juicers, and refrigerators with VitaFresh technology.
He recalled that the largest segments on the MDA market remain refrigerators and washing machines (one third of the market each), with the highest growth rates showed by new categories – drying machines and dishwashers.
“This is a positive trend, because the saturation of the market of refrigerators in households today is 98-99%, and dishwashers – only 4-5% (for example, in Germany it is 80%). And if they show growth, then the incomes of the population increase. In this segment, the share of our brands is 48% “, Maksymov said.
