11/12/2008 14h46
BSH tries to recover Continentals sales
Gazeta Mercantil - 11/12/2008
In 1994, when German group Bosch Siemens Home Appliances (BSH) bought Continental and entered Brazil, it opted to join forces to firm the Bosch brand in the Country. With Continental, however, there were twelve years of consecutive losses of market share, according to the company's marketing superintendent Mauro Avila Correia. Two years ago, a reformulation began to be produced, while the company got to stabilize the sales of the brand, explained the executive. Now, after two years of researches, the company expects to recover the lost share with a line focused on the C class, which will have products of new category, such as frost free refrigerators (that do not accumulate ice), five-burner stoves, stainless steel stoves and exhausted hoods. In the surveys that were carried out in those two years of development of the new line, the company tried to identify the peculiarity of the "new" middle class consumers. "We detected that the five burner stove was a desire of women consumers", said Correia. Another identified desire was frost free refrigerators, which Continental still did not have. In total, R$ 10 million (US$ 4.6 million) was invested in the plant, in Hortolândia, and in the development of the products. Together, Continental and Bosch occupy the fourth position in the market share of refrigerators and the third one in the stove market, according to data of the National Association of Electro-electronic Products Manufacturers (Eletros) furnished by Correia.
