Sales of domestic appliances see surge in Southeast Asia

Consumers snapped up nearly 16 million food preparation machines, irons, rice cookers and vacuum cleaners during this period – over 1.8 million units more than last year.
The latest GfK retail audit reported that the |industry’s strong performance in each of the coun-tries hit double-digit value growth of 14-22 per cent, with Vietnam registering the highest growth while the rest of the markets reported expansion of 14-15 per cent.
In terms of volume, Vietnam and Indonesia reflected the highest rise in demand at 18 per cent and 17 per cent over last year.
Indonesia, the largest market, alone contributed $145 million or a third of total small domestic appliance sales, with almost one in every two appliances sold across the region being bought by a consumer in the country.
The most sought-after small appliance is the rice cooker, selling more than 7.1 million units worth some $190 million in the first half of the year. The robust showing across Southeast Asia was mainly driven by Vietnam, which reported a 31-per-cent increment in both volume and value.
Trailing behind rice cookers is the food prepa-ration category, which accumulated $102 million in sales, although it was the irons segment that attained the second-highest volume at 4.7 million units.