Beko Eyes Chinese Market

Reflecting some of the settings on its products, multinational home appliance maker Beko is being particularly selective about how it caters to the Chinese market.

Pressing the right buttons to satisfy particular people's wishes is more important to sales success, it believes, than meeting numerical demand through basic products and prices.

With the continuing rise of Chinese people's disposable income, Beko and all of its competitors see China as an important battleground in their global marketing strategies.

For Istanbul-based Beko, promoting brand awareness is the top priority in gaining a foothold in this highly competitive market.

Founded in 1955, the white goods manufacturer says it has sold its products to 440 million people worldwide and its products have been sold in more than 100 countries. It sells more than 8.5 million home appliances a year. In Britain alone, Beko had sales revenue of 340 million pounds (US$557 million) last year, up from 319 million pounds in 2011. The company had 17 percent of the British white goods market last year.

It is now striving to seize a larger market share in China by offering people a wider variety of smart technologies and user-friendly products, says Ayse Topcu, Beko's global marketing director.

"We are a growing company and have a great global vision, so we are always searching and looking for opportunities in emerging markets," Topcu says.

"China is a place we cannot miss, because we regard it as the most important country in emerging markets."

The company, one of the market leaders in Europe, entered China in 2006. Three years later, it acquired a washing machine factory in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, which can produce 200,000 front-loading washing machines a year, some for export.

"As a multinational company, we are looking at China as the key market to continue our global expansion," says Beko's general manager for China, Giulio Ambrosi.

"We have achieved outstanding results in Europe and a variety of other markets within a very short timeframe. Our next logical step is to achieve the same ambitious objectives here in China.

"Our business in China has increased consistently by more than 50 percent a year over the past several years.

"As a percentage of our overall turnover, the China component is still limited, but our long-term expansion plans target growth there at a faster pace than that of the company as a whole."

He says it is hard work for foreign brands to develop in China. Beko has spent a lot of time in market research to find out about China's complicated market conditions.