Vacuums collecting profit at Arctic

Even though the Arctic brand does not seem to become cookers, washing machines or vacuum cleaners, the introduction of the three new products on the market in the first half of 2003 redoubled Arctic’s sales compared with the year-ago period, while profit surged to six times the level posted in H1, 2002. This substantial improvement comes after the takeover of Arctic by Turkey’s largest private company Arcelik. The sales of the four products now branded as Arctic amounted to 1,221bn ROL ($37 million), while sales of refrigerators in the same time last year were worth 610bn ROL. The home appliance maker’s six-month profit totalled 96bn ROL ($3 million) compared to a 42bn ROL loss in the same time last year and a 16.3bn full-year profit. The management says the launch of the three products was a complete success: “The market response was just perfect. It is too soon to be talking about the market share of the new products, but I can say we managed to sell ten times more than we had planned,” Erhan Saylan, Arctic’s chief financial officer told Ziarul Financiar. ZF