Electrolux President and CEO Hans Stråberg recently commented on the 2007 results and announced the company would review refrigerator production in Italy in the interest of making it more competitive. This is part of the implementation of the company’s strategy for developing innovative products, strengthening the Electrolux brand and cutting costs in the long term through restructuring.

Investment in the development of new products has increased 10% over 2006 and investment in brands also rose in 2007. The Electrolux brand has been strengthened, particularly in Europe. Work also continues on making production more competitive by relocating to low-cost countries. In addition, an organic growth of 4% has been achieved in 2007, which is in line with our target. In North America, sales rose by 2% while the market declined by almost 6%, and the operation in Latin America reported the best performance ever. As for Australia, the company’s market position has been reinforced and it achieved considerably higher profitability.

However, the performance by Electrolux appliances in Europe was a disappointmen, reveals the company’s press release. Hans Stråberg stated: “As our new products were well-received by the market, our average prices were higher in all product categories and virtually every country. In order to deliver our products to retailers according to plan, we were forced to prioritize time ahead of cost. This meant that costs for many products were higher than the original targets. We are working on solving these problems, and we are striving to get costs down to the planned level during the second half of 2008. As a result, we are going to implement a review of our refrigerator production in Italy in the interest of making it more competitive.