Elica BoD approves the Q1 2023 results. “Despite a significant market decline, we are pleased to report results in line with expectations. Our approach has been focused on the long-term value, allowing us to defend margins in a market with low volumes and significant inflation. Additionally, we have continued our transformation and expanded our offerings to become more Cooking. In this environment, the “Own Brand” business is performing better than the market and our “Motors Division” continued to grow. Although the year ahead may be challenging, we are confident that we will come out even stronger and well prepared for the future.” commented – Giulio Cocci Elica CEO.
From left to right: BSH management team – Lars Schubert, Dr Gerhard Dambach, Dr Matthias Metz, Dr Alexander Dony and Rudolf Klötscher
Leading German appliance brand BSH has celebrated record growth for a third year running, achieving sales of €15.9bn in the 2022 financial year, despite challenges BSH managed a growth of 2.5% on the previous year (currency-adjusted of 4.2%) despite supply bottlenecks, increased material prices and higher logistics and energy costs.
In addition, the company said that over the two previous years, it has benefited from a boom in the consumer goods business caused by the pandemic. This increased demand fell last year, while inflation rose sharply at the same time.
CEO Dr Matthew Metz commented: “Thanks to the loyalty of our consumers and trading partners, our strong global brand portfolio, our innovative products and services and the great commitment of our employees, we have mastered the past year well.
“Our aspiration for the current year: We want to continue growing profitably in all regions and product categories. In addition to managing the significantly increased costs – for example in the areas of energy, material and personnel – the focus is on making our supply chains even more resilient.”Stable growth in all regions In the Americas region including the USA and Canada, BSH once again showed above-average growth in the 2022 financial year, with an increase of 16%. While in Europe, it remained No.1, despite delivery bottlenecks and increased energy and material prices, which were particularly noticeable in this region.
For the entire Asia-Pacific/Africa region, BSH achieved sales growth of 2% compared to the previous year. Due to special effects, such as restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, BSH recorded a decline of 4% in China. On the other hand, sales in the growth markets increased at an above-average rate, particularly in India and the Middle East.
With a clear view of the future, BSH is setting the course for future growth today. “Our central concern is to understand local needs in the markets and to develop and produce home appliances that meet consumer needs and improve the quality of life in their homes. For us, market proximity and international growth go hand in hand,” Dr Metz explains.
“At the same time, we are expanding globally. From 2024 we will be manufacturing refrigerators for the North American market in a new factory in Mexico. We have also invested in the Asia-Pacific and Africa region: In India, we have expanded our production in Chennai. And last week we celebrated the ground-breaking ceremony for our stove factory in Cairo.
Product categories cooling and dishwashing with strong growth The strongest sales driver in the past financial year was the cooling product category with an increase of 8.8% on the previous year, closely followed by the sink product category, which was able to increase 8%. Cooking, the top-selling product category, grew by 2.8%. Here, however, the market was waiting for an important model change, a new oven series, which is due in spring 2023. Laundry care and consumer products, the small home appliance division, saw declines of 6% and 6.2%, respectively.
BSH customer service with its comprehensive range of services achieved a 2.2% increase in sales. Around 15,000 employees work in over 50 countries every day. 83% of all repairs can be done right away. This performance is also reflected in the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which continuously measures satisfaction with customer service, BSH said. The score rose again by two points to the outstanding value of 73 points. The success of customer service can also be seen in regular awards. In 2022, the German daily newspaper “Welt” awarded German customer service for the eleventh time in a row for first-class service from the Bosch and Siemens brands. The Bosch brand even emerges from the ranking as No. 1 in the entire household appliance industry, closely followed by Siemens in second placeIn 2022, BSH presented a range of innovative digital products and solutions, it said. The new premium oven series from Bosch and Siemens (shown top) was among these, while the Smart Kitchen Dock presented last year bundles a wide variety of Alexa and Home Connect functions and thus enables access to all services of the Home Connect platform as well as to recipe apps with smart cooking support such as Kitchen Stories, the company added.
For the Chinese market, BSH uses air quality sensors from Bosch in its refrigerators. These recognise bad smells immediately and automatically clean the air in the refrigerator with the help of active oxygen. In this way, 99% of all bacteria and viruses and 90% of all odours can be eliminated, the company claims. In addition, the networked device informs consumers via smartphone when food has gone bad.
The Bosch Group – and thus also BSH – is a member of the “Connectivity Standards Alliance”, an association of numerous large companies that are simplifying the smart home world with the new Matter connection standard. In the future, it will be possible to operate Matter-enabled household appliances from BSH and household appliances from other manufacturers in just one app.
In addition, expenditure on research and development increased by 5.3% compared to the previous year – BSH invested a total of €840m euros, which BSH is using to promote digital, consumer-oriented products and innovations.
Sustainable solutions along the entire value chain BSH has been developing and manufacturing CO₂-neutral at all locations worldwide since 2020. One of the biggest levers for this is the constant increase in energy efficiency in production. In 2022, BSH saved around 33.4 GWh of energy with more than 230 energy efficiency measures worldwide. Self-generated green electricity is increasingly covering electricity requirements. BSH has set itself the goal of covering 100% of its electricity needs with green electricity by 2030.
In order to make the value chain more sustainable, the home appliance manufacturer is working with partners on new solutions. These include the use of recycled plastics and so-called green steel. These materials are used, for example, in the new Bosch Green Collection refrigerator, which will be launched in Europe in May. Thanks to the use of recycled, CO₂-reduced and CO₂-neutral materials, the resulting CO₂ footprint from the material is a third lower than that of the identically constructed comparison model with conventional materials
Samsung Electronics Co. is likely to post an operating loss in the second quarter on a chip downturn and decline in mobile demand, in what will be the first quarterly loss for the world’s largest memory chip maker in nearly 15 years, according to analysts Sunday.
Samsung Electronics could suffer an operating loss of as much as 1.28 trillion won (US$961 million), according to an estimate by Hi Investment & Securities Co.
Haier Europe – part of Haier Smart Home, number one company globally in major home appliances – announces the acquisition of EuroPalTners Italia (EPI), a company specialized in providing large consumer electronics repair services and customer care.
The operation is in line with Haier Europe’s Zero Distance philosophy, which aims to meet consumers’ needs and expectations also through an effective post sales experience. Thanks to this acquisition, Haier Europe will further enhance the quality and timing of service operations for the Company’s brands, with the aim of offering a solid, high-level after-sales service to its consumers.
EPI has been working with Haier Europe since 2019, providing after sales assistance and value-added services for the Candy and Hoover brands. In 2021, Haier Europe had already acquired a relevant minority stake in EPI to offer a high level after-sales service to its customers. Today, the company has announced the acquisition of the remaining 51% stake, thus gaining full control of EPI.
Elica Spa announced Tuesday that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Ilve that will allow the company to grow in the world of home cooking by also marketing induction ovens and hobs.
Ilve is an Italian company specializing in cooking systems that “has distinguished itself over the years for its vocation for innovation and technical wisdom in steel processing, combined with continuous research in the field of processes and technologies. Together with Ilve, Elica will espouse a philosophy of transition to new markets that will bring both companies and expand their business,” said Elica.
Elica’s stock is up 1.4 percent at EUR2.86 per share
Haier has entered the world of professional tennis as Official Partner of some of the world’s top tennis tournaments.
The sponsorship agreement between Haier, ATP Tour and the Fédération Française de Tennis includes the Grand Slam tournament Roland Garros, the Nitto ATP Finals, two ATP Masters 1000 tournaments (Internazionali BNL d’Italia and Rolex Paris Masters) and three ATP 500 tournaments (Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, Cinch Championship and Hamburg European Open) in 2023.
Online electrical retailer Marks Electrical Group reported record full year revenue of £97.8m, according to a trading update for the year to 31 March 2023.
The results represent a growth rate of 21.5%, up from £80.5m in 2022.
The firm is now expecting to achieve a full year Adjusted EBITDA exceeding £7.5m.
“We are delighted to finish the year with revenue growth of 21.5% to a record £97.8m, especially against the prevailing economic back-drop. This further demonstrates the strength of our business model and the attractiveness and advantage of our market-leading customer offering, as more people continue to discover our brand up and down the country,” Mark Smithson, chief executive officer, commented.
Marks Electrical Group recorded a strong trading period in its fourth quarter, with 20.0% revenue growth to £24.8m – up from £20.7m during the same period in 2022.
It was a good start to the year for Chinese brand Haier Smart Home which has seen strong revenue growth against current industry trends Haier’s revenue hit RMB 243.514 billion (€32bn) in 2022 versus RMB 227.106 billion (€30.28bn) the previous year. Its net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company amounted to RMB 14.711 billion (€1.9m). Growth in profit exceeded that of revenue, Haier said.
It comes after the brand re-entered the Fortune list of World’s Most Admired companies back in February, and the appliances arm being named Euromonitor No. 1 Global Appliance Brand for the 14th year running.
Drivers for Haier’s success have been attributed to successful brand building strategies and the effective digital transformation of domestic and overseas businesses. It means the consumer electronics giant has been able to report strong growth against the sluggish trend of the home appliance industry.
Meanwhile, Haier Smart Home‘s overseas business grew by 10.3% in the reporting year despite challenges such as high inflation and slowing global consumer demand in 2022.
Haier Smart Home said it accelerated the localisation of its supply chain setup in overseas markets, and fully leveraged its global collaborative advantages to effectively respond to these challenges. The company’s overseas business increased by 10.3% year-on-year in 2022. In the American market, the company’s revenue increased by 9.0% (revenue in local currency increased by 4.6%), under the background that the industry’s major home appliance shipment growth was -6%. In the European market, the company recorded revenue growth of 16.7% while the industry’s sale volume growth was -8.9%.
At home, in the domestic market, Haier reported “continuous growth”, particularly with its premium Casarte brand, which continues to rank No.1 in China.
Finally, Three-Winged Bird, Haier Smart Home’s smart home eco-system brand, has also been a driving force for growth, the company said. “It continuously iterated the so-called “1+3+5+N” smart home solutions, enhancing user value based on its 5 core capabilities including Smart Home Brain capability, scenario solution capability, store operation capability, 1+N delivery capability, and digital tools capability.
During 2022, more than 900 stores of Three-Winged Bird were opened, and the retail sales of the Three-Winged Bird stores increased by 257% year-on-year.
With the continuous deepening of digital transformation, Haier Smart Home’s profitability continued to improve by increasing its resource efficiency and hence, creating room for new expansion in a more sustainable way
This month, LG CEO Cho visited the company’s key production bases in Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, directly looking into key factors of operational advancement strategies, such as quality enhancement, supply chain, cost structure improvement, safety and productivity of vehicle components, home appliances and TVs. Ultimately, the company aims to strengthen competitiveness and growth in key business areas and global markets.
“Let’s further strengthen our market dominance and solidify the foundation for sustainable growth by upgrading our locally-optimized operation methods and providing world-class quality, cost competitiveness and reliable delivery to our customers,” said CEO Cho. “We should look to pioneer future markets with our unmatched innovation and ability to overcome challenges, while holding firm to the belief that opportunities come from delivering exceptional customer experiences.”
The CEO began his Asian tour in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he was joined by the heads of LG’s Asian subsidiaries for a management meeting. There, he was briefed on the company’s regional performance and discussed the status of individual markets including Vietnam, which serves as a global production base for LG’s electronic devices and home appliances. He also had in-depth talks with the subsidiary heads on a variety of business matters, such as improving production efficiency, verifying mass production processes for new products, enhancing quality control and boosting growth through mutually beneficial partnerships.Departing Vietnam, CEO Cho headed to Thailand to visit the Rayong factory and its home appliance production lines. Next, he traveled to Jakarta, Indonesia to inspect LG’s Cibitung plant, which has become a major TV production base for the company’s premium product lineups, including LG OLED TVs. After Jakarta, the CEO made a stop in the city of Tangerang, meeting staff and looking over facilities at the local LG plant, which focuses primarily on refrigerator production.
“Our Vietnam and Indonesia subsidiaries now form a complete business structure, having recently added a local R&D subsidiary to the production and sales corporations already in place,” noted CEO Cho, who also called on all subsidiaries in the Asia region to accelerate their business management by implementing active localization strategiesLast year, the company achieved sales of more than KRW 7.8 trillion in the Asian market, continuously increasing sales by about KRW 1 trillion yearly with double-digit growth over the past two years.This year alone, the CEO has already spent more than 150 hours in the air visiting nine countries across North America, Europe, Asia and Central and South America – participating in major events, including CES 2023 and AHR Expo in the U.S.A. and ISE 2023 in Spain, and touring various LG facilities in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Australia
The divestment of the Electrolux Group manufacturing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, will not be completed as expected since the intended buyer has failed to proceed to closing. Electrolux Group will now seek an alternative buyer.
As earlier communicated, completion of the divestment of the facility was contingent on various factors. The intended buyer has defaulted on its obligations and the agreement is therefore terminated.
In the now terminated contract, communicated on October 12 and December 19, 2022, Electrolux Group had agreed to divest the Memphis facility for a cash consideration of USD 82.5m (approx. SEK 930m). Production in Memphis stopped on June 30, 2022, and the operations have been transferred to the new facility in Springfield, Tennessee.
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