New York — Asked recently about the state of his home appliances business, J. Con Maloney, CEO of Cowboy Maloney’s Electric City, told TWICE that white goods sales remained strong, which should come as no surprise.
“Appliances are always going to be good,” Maloney said. “We refer to the category as ‘Mother,’ and we say, ‘Mother always takes care of us.’”
Turns out Mom didn’t let Maloney or the balance of majap retailing down in 2003. According to the results of TWICE’s Top 100 Appliance Retailers survey, white goods sales for the 100 largest appliance dealers in the land grew by 10.3 percent last year to $18.1 billion, outpacing 2002’s none-too-shabby 9.5 percent gains but trailing 2001’s 14 percent payday.
It should also come as no surprise that much of that growth could be attributed to the home-improvement channel, i.e. The Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards and Spenard, which accounted for 31.2 percent of all Top 100 sales volume last year, up 19 percent to $5.6 billion from $4.7 billion in 2002.
Conversely, share of Top 100 sales for the mass merchant category, which, thanks to the inclusion of Sears, Wal-Mart and Kmart, remains the majap industry’s largest retail segment, slipped 6 percent from 35.3 percent to 33.2 percent of total volume, or $6.0 billion.
The third-largest dealer classification, regional CE and majaps chains like H.H. Gregg and P.C. Richard & Son, saw its market share fall 2.7 percent to nearly 11 percent of all Top 100 sales, while the No. 4 category, multi-regional CE and majaps chains, including Best Buy and Fry’s, edged up 2.3 percent to 9 percent of all Top 100 sales.
Here is a sneak preview of the TWICE Top 100 Major Appliance Retailer list. Copies will soon be available for online purchase
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