Irish SDA Market – A Testing 2009 Across the Board

The year 2009 has proved tough for the Irish SDA markets with most product areas seeing a decline versus 2008.  

Kitchen Appliances reported a 3.3% growth in volume but a 7.4% fall in value compared to 2008, suggesting that consumers have been attracted to the variety of aggressive promotional activity present during the course of the year. Indeed, the average price decline for the sector over the same period stood at 10.3%. The only Kitchen Appliances market to buck the negative value trend was Toasters, which experienced value growth of 2.1% against the previous year.

The Personal Care sector, comprising of Hair Stylers, Hair Dryers and Shavers, saw a fall in value of 9.4% with volume decline being less pronounced at 3.9%. Despite the vast range of innovative product launches throughout the year, the incentives to ‘trade up’ purchases have been largely offset by the popularity of the entry level price segments in these product areas. The largest market by value, Shavers, underlines this trend with average price decline of 9.7% compared to 2008.

Looking to the year ahead, one might possibly expect to see a modest value increase in both the Kitchen Appliances and Personal Care sectors, as signs of increasing Consumer Confidence pave the way towards a heightened demand for more design led, feature rich products.