IFA 2018: SDA Trending Towards Convenience, Health and Connectivity

IFA 2018: SDA Trending Towards Convenience, Health and Connectivity
Fotolia

Demand for small domestic appliances (SDA) continues to grow, according to GfK.

From January to June 2018, the global market (excluding North America) showed positive growth with an overall increase of seven percent for a total market value of €21.8 billion, assuming a fixed Euro exchange rate. GfK expects an SDA global sales growth of eight to nine percent for the full year 2018.

In the SDA markets a few trend segments represent a very large share of the growth dynamic. Over 40 percent of the global growth is attributed to the cordless handstick vacuum cleaners. Compared to the first half of 2017, their revenues increased by 51 percent.

The strongest growth region for small domestic appliances is APAC. Sales in the region increased by 13 percent to €9.5 billion in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period of the previous year. Devices such as cordless handstick vacuum cleaners (+56 percent), robot vacuum cleaners (+32 percent) and liquidizers (+25 percent), are primarily responsible for this growth in Asia.

The topic of convenience is becoming increasingly important for SDA success globally. In the area of floor cleaning, cordless handstick vacuum cleaners continued their success story. Even the considerable sales growth of recent years has been exceeded and the sales volume is now over €1.8 billion (+51 percent). Taking Germany as an example, an additional €51 million for a total revenue of €143 million for cordless handstick vacuum cleaners has been realized with such devices.

Sales of robot vacuum cleaners climbed considerably (+28 percent), as well as emerging convenience segments like wet & dry vacuum cleaners (+17 percent). The most important markets for this new type of wet cleaner are Germany (€12.5 million) followed by France (€4.4 million) and Great Britain (€3.7 million), but smaller European markets are showing equal dynamics.

Physical well-being is an increasingly popular topic in consumers’ lives; fitness trackers and apps speak a language. In the kitchen, liquidizers for fruit and vegetables, for example, are in demand. Driven by the APAC and LATAM markets, this product group has grown considerably, by twelve percent, achieving an overall revenue of €1 billion in the first half of 2018.

Sales of air cleaning appliances have seen an eight percent revenue growth over the past year, making them an important driver of the small domestic appliances market. This expansion has been driven by APAC and especially China. More than half of the air cleaning market revenues comes from this region.

Connectivity is becoming more and more important for small domestic appliances. The value-based market share of connected appliances increased by a very considerable 75 percent to €1.2 billion in the first half of 2018. This sales jump was mainly impacted by vacuum cleaner robots with a triple digit growth and smart air cleaners which sold 50 percent more compared to last year’s period. With these growth rates, the market size of smart vacuum cleaning robots (60 percent) is bigger compared to the non-smart ones (40 percent). Also online retail geared up again; a sales increase of 19 percent lifted the total market share of online retail above 30 percent in the first half of 2018.