Flanco posts 120 million euros in turnover

Flanco, the electronics and electrical home appliances network, last year created turnover worth 120 million euros, a value close to the one posted in the previous year.
“Overall, sales were quite weak at the beginning of 2004, but the market rallied in the last months, bring the sales to results close to the previous year’s”, says Adrian Barbu, Flanco sales manager.
According to Barbu, the last quarter of 2004 brought higher sales, “with a peak in December, when sales accounted for over 20% of annual sales”.
In 2003, Flanco derived turnover of almost 119 million euros and net profit overshooting 7.5 million euros, in line with data available on the web site of the Finance Ministry.
Early last year, Flanco officials counted on a turnover increase to 170 million euros.
Subsequently, amid the dramatic slump in sales of electrical home appliances in the wake of the introduction of norms on consumer loans announced by the National Bank of Romania, the company revised its projections.
Even though in terms of sales Flanco regained the ground it had lost in the first part of the year, estimated profit went down by 25-30% in 2004, according to the company’s representatives. This means net profit standing at 5.3-5.3 million euros.
Adrian Barbu would not issue any estimates related to Flanco’s sales growth for this year.
“Overall, the market last year shrank by about 5-7%, particularly in the case of large electrical home appliances (washing machines, refrigerators), and could not entirely make up for the slower pace posted in the first months”, Barbu explained.
Instead, the IT or communication products market, such as computers or mobile phones, rose last year, offsetting the drop registered by the electrical home appliances market.
“We estimate an average global growth rate of about 15% for the electronics and electrical home appliances market this year, with speedier growth for the GSM-IT segment”, adds Barbu.
At the end of last year, Flanco reached a total sales area of 19,000 square metres.
“Flanco’s retail area advanced by over 40% last year as compared to the previous year”, Barbu estimates.
Over recent years, Flanco launched on the domestic market brands such as Varyo, Magister and SEG, exclusively distributed in Romania through its network.
Through Veryo and Seg brands, Flanco owns over 10% of the domestic TV sets market, according to company representatives that are quoting market research for October-November 2004.
ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro