10/14/2008 10h34
Whirlpool reviews goal and bets on frost free to expand sales
Gazeta Mercantil - 10/14/2008
Manufacturers of the white line (refrigerators, stoves, and so on) can not say that the sector's difficulties arrived with the international financing crisis. The high of the metallic commodities and of resins, for example, have disturbed companies since last year, which forced a readjustment of the costs and led to a slow-down in the first semester. Now companies are already redoing their estimates once again. "We began the year foreseeing a 7% growth in the sales of refrigerators. After the first semester we reviewed it to 5% and now we already admit that it may be 3%", said Jerome Cadier, Whirlpool's Marketing Director. However, even in view of a situation filled with uncertainties, the company bets on its category and puts in the market a line of one-door frost-free refrigerators (which do not freeze), the first ones in the world, according to Cadier. The idea, according to the executive, is to expand the present of the frost-free refrigerators in the Brazilian homes. Today, 23% of the Brazilian refrigerators have that technology. With the one-door models, which will be cheaper than those available in the market, Cadier believes that the penetration may get to 35% by 2009. It is those new models - Consul's, the cheapest one, will cost R$ 1.24 thousand (US$ 563.6), and Brastemp's, the most expensive one, will cost R$ 1.54 thousand (US$ 700), prices similar to those of the already existing one-door refrigerators -, which are the hopes for growth for the next year. "We are searching for a three-point increase of market share", he said. According to him, the company's two brands currently have 50% of the market share. According to Eletros data, the refrigerators market involves approximately 5 million units a year. The Latin Panel Institute estimates that the installed park of refrigerators in Brazil is 45 million units. "The frost-free technology was launched in the Brazilian market 25 years ago, and it was never able to grow much because of the prices. We have overcome this big difficulty and were able to make a one-door one for the same price", he said. Cadier said that the one-door refrigerators represent 50% of the sales and are 70% of the installed park. "We carried out six surveys during one and a half year, while we developed the technology. We detected that consumers prefer one-door refrigerators with frost free technology to two-door ones without the technology", he said.
