“The Home Appliance Industry in Europe 2020-2021” is the latest APPLiA Europe report, focusing on sustainability, digitalisation and European competitiveness as fostered by the home appliance sector. According to the reported data, the home appliance industry has registered a significant progress in advancing sustainability and circularity, alongside innovation, in the broader effort to enable the energy transition. In these difficult times, «the industry was called to adapt and resort to risk mitigation tactics, with an eye to secure jobs and reasonably preserve national and international operations, while always standing aside European citizens – said Dr Götz, APPLiA’s outgoing president and BSH Executive Vice-President -. The 6th edition of the APPLiA Statistical Report is a comprehensive means to celebrate the accomplishments of the industry while setting the scene for more ambitious targets in the year to come.»
As Paolo Falcioni, APPLiA Director General, commented, «data show remarkable progress not only on the circularity and resource efficiency side of products among others, but also on the sector’s improved use of recycled plastic in applications, for instance, as provided in the recently introduced plastic flow analysis, in the Report. Collected trends also inform on an increasingly growing demand for smart appliances across Europe and the wider world, estimating a total of 72,1 million of smart homes only in Europe, by 2024.»
In 2020 the direct and indirect value added to GDP by home appliance industry reached more than 56.5 billion euro, while turnover in EU achieved 54.6 billion euro. The number of enterprisesin was equal to the 3,214 and 215,225 were the sector direct employees, increasing to 946,990 if we include the indirect employees.