An almost stable market, with some acceleration on the occasion of Black Friday and other promotional moments. This is the Belgian household appliance market which, according to GfK Temax data, still collects several positive signs, especially for White Goods. The major appliances have maintained a good trend throughout 2017, closing the year with a total value of about 1.3 billion euro, an increase of 1.4% compared to 2016. The trend in the sector has accelerated last quarter, with a 1.9% increase in turnover between October and December.
The trend of small domestic appliances, instead, was not so homogeneous: it closed 2017 with an increase in turnover, but recording a fall in the fourth quarter. Last year’s turnover amounted to almost 600 million euro, a value 2.2% higher than in 2016. The last quarter of the year however saw a contraction of the same entity.
On the contrary, the situation is more critical for Consumer Electronics and Brown Goods, which recorded an annual decrease of 5.3%, dampened only by the positive result of aggressive promotional campaigns dedicated to the TV segment, which made it possible to reduce the drop at 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2017. The total value of the sector reached 766 million euro.
On the other hand, it was a positive year for Information Technology and Telecommunication, which benefited from the success of some product categories, including video games and wearable devices. The first sector has achieved an annual turnover of over 1.5 billion euros, marking a growth of 3.9%, the most important of all the macro-sector of Technical Consumer Good. Telecommunication products, in turn, marked a 1.7% increase in turnover, almost touching the value of 1.3 billion euro. Finally, it remains critical of the situation in the digital photography sector which, in the fourth quarter of last year, recorded a decrease of 4.3%.
