MANILA, Philippines — Filipinos are working “hard” to meet the goals on their to-do lists, so much so that it has affected sales of home appliances.
It is one of the most important brands and suppliers of family appliances in the Philippines.
Filipinos are prioritizing spending over buying appliances and other products as revenge continues after the pandemic.
Panasonic Manufacturing Philippines Corporation (Panasonic Philippines) revealed on Friday (July 12) that sales of its Panasonic home appliances and other products declined in 2023, in part because Filipino consumers chose to spend more on travel.
It also attributed its drop in sales to less expensive Chinese goods, “sluggish export demand,” higher interest rates and higher inflation.
According to its 2023 annual report, Panasonic Philippines said its 2023 sales of P14. 3 billion were 94% lower than in 2022.
It cites “the shift in Filipino customers’ spending primarily towards travel,” as well as “the emergence of Chinese-branded products with lower promotional prices,” among the reasons for the drop in sales.
And it’s not just about the shift in spending to travel, Panasonic Philippines said, but also about the “intensity of spending. ”
Delving into the Chinese home appliances market, Panasonic Philippines said the festival in the market has noticed “the emergence of Chinese products with competitive promotions. ”
The price difference between established local brand appliances and many Chinese imports is significant. For example, an 8. 5-kilogram (kg) fully automatic washing machine from established brands is twice as expensive as some 8-kilogram fully automatic Chinese brands, a consultation with a major e-commerce in the Philippines was demonstrated. Another e-commerce has shown that the value of established brand air conditioners can be as much as double the value of some Chinese brands.
Panasonic Philippines’ main products are refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, electric fans, freezers, and irons. It also sells imported appliances, such as LCD TVs, video and photo cameras, cordless and stressed phones, batteries, and appliances such as POS machines.
Panasonic air conditioners contributed 514. 9 million pesos to total sales in 2023 (15%), followed by 398 million pesos from washing machines (18%) and 381 million pesos from refrigerators. Export sales of its air conditioners, basically to Hong Kong and Taiwan, reached 1. 18 billion pesos.
Panasonic’s main competitors (the brands established in the Philippines) are Carrier, TCL, Samsung, Condura, Daikin and Haier for air conditioners; Samsung, LG, Haier, Condura and Sharp for refrigerators; and LG, Samsung, Sharp, Haier, TCL and Condura for washing machines.
In reaction to the slowdown in sales, Panasonic Philippines highlighted the quality of its products, adding that its sales and marketing organization had developed “several strategies, adding albeit limited to winning the festival through the logo price and the One Panasonic approach. ”
Panasonic Philippines incorporated in the Philippines in 1963. It is a subsidiary of the Japanese company Panasonic Holdings Corporation.
Several official data showed that the Philippine revenge continued in 2023. The number of Filipino travelers finally stands at the peak of more than 8 million reached in 2019, the year before COVID-19 put an end to global travel.
Although the information available from the latest achievement report of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) does not classify the purpose of the trip, it provides an intelligent picture of the revenge trip.
According to the BI, there were 1. 3 million departures of Filipinos in 2021, when restrictions were relaxed. In 2022, it will amount to 2. 4 million departures. And, in 2023, it jumped to 7. 2 million departures, or 3 times more.
Since the figure for Filipino departures in 2023 includes 2. 33 million deployed Filipino personnel (OFWs) in 2023, this means that there were 4. 9 million departures of non-OFWs, and most of them left by fun.
“A lot of Filipinos. . . have traveled this year [2023] as countries reopened their borders after the pandemic,” BI Chief Commissioner Norman Tansingco said in a January 2024 press release.
Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan have been the top three most sensible destinations for Filipinos in the past year, according to data from the Ministry of Tourism.
Hong Kong and Singapore require visas for Filipinos, while Japan liberalized access for Filipinos and other ASEAN citizens in 2013.
Hong Kong tourism data showed 715,214 Filipino tourist arrivals in 2023, a 3,497% increase from 21,046 in 2022. The upward trend has continued this year. In the first three months of 2024, there were 433,810 Filipino tourists in Hong Kong, up from 208,846 in the same period in 2023, an increase of 107%, according to statistics from the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
Japan is also a top destination for Filipinos. Filipinos were the eighth-largest source of visitors to Japan in the first 3 months of 2024, after visitors from South Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, the United States, Thailand, and Australia, founded on the initial figures from the Japan National Tourism Organization for January. walk.
Filipinos spend around P46,000 when traveling to Japan, according to a survey conducted by the Japan Tourism Agency.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the Philippines’ outbound tourism spending has rebounded strongly.
From a pre-pandemic value of P340 billion in 2019 to P78 billion in 2020, it recovered to P189 billion in 2022 and P208 billion in 2023.
Data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization showed figures exceeding $12 billion for Philippine foreign tourism spending before the pandemic in 2019, which fell to $3. 2 billion in 2021. From So, they have tended to increase to 4. 9 billion dollars in 2022 and 6. 6 billion dollars in 2022. in 2023. . – Rappler. com
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