domestic appliances floorcare & deep cleaning Rolling along nicely
The floorcare category has certainly leaped out of the economic doldrums with positive growth in value sales across all but one product area.
In 2010, the floorcare market grew by 5.7% in value but only 0.4% volume which was mostly due to the growing popularity of better specified models and an increase of an average price by 5.3% to £88.
One of the chief battles for domination fought in this category is between upright and cylinder models.
In value terms, uprights remain in pole position – £243.4 million compared to cylinders at £211.8 million, in a market worth £520.7 million. But uprights only saw a 2.75% rise in value, cylinders 9.23% and a 5.2% drop in volume while cylinders sold 6.4% more units year-on-year. So does that mean cylinder models are likely to take over from uprights in value, rather like espresso coffee makers have over filter coffee makers and epilators have over shavers in ladies grooming? Far-fetched examples perhaps, but it is all about trends. Cylinders have become popular for use on wooden floors, they take up arguably less space than uprights and are easy to manoeuvre.
But the average price of an upright is still about £45 more than that of a cylinder – both showed increases in price and it was uprights that showed the stronger growth, 8.4% compared to 2.7% for cylinder. So uprights remain in the dominant position and in floorcare we are some way off an ‘espresso moment’.
Bagged versus bagless This is the other major battleground in floorcare – uprights and cylinders both have bagged and bagless models on offer. Bagless has been ahead of the game significantly and in value terms, in uprights, there really is no contest, with bagless at £220.5 million and bagged at £22.9 million. It is much closer with cylinders – £125.9 million bagless and
IndependentElectricalRetailer £ Market trends
✔ Total market worth over £520 million and main battles for domination are fought between upright and cylinder models. Uprights are ahead by around £30 million, but cylinders showing good growth.
✔ Are we set for an ‘espresso moment’ in floorcare similar to when espresso makers overtook the dominant filter coffee makers? It seems unlikely yet.
✔ Bagged versus bagless – bagless are well ahead in uprights and less so in cylinders. Combined bagged/bagless models which should have caught on more by now, still at a very low level.
✔ Steam cleaning is growing, as are electric sweepers, but wet & dry are waning. Robots are doing well in value and average price, but remain niche.
✔ Developments include a trend towards eco products, joining the existing energy-saving measures as ‘green’ moves.
68 BusinessBook2011
in association with GfK
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