The connected household appliances market - France

The connected household appliance market grew in France in 2018 despite reduced consumption by French households due to limited growth in purchasing power. In fact, it is the household appliance market as a whole that is growing in France, with growth of 1.1% and 0.8% in value respectively according to GfK, for sales of large and small appliances between 2017 and 2018. During this period, the French confirmed the "home-made" trend, which particularly benefited the connected household appliance market, which was able to respond with numerous innovations. Moulinex was able to offer new food processors such as the "Cookéo", which soon faced competition from Lidl's "Monsieur Cuisine Plus" model. Connected household appliances promise consumers time savings and ease of use, which in the past were more of a chore than a pleasant activity. The sector is thus strongly driven by the innovation of historical brands of household appliances, such as the iQ500 from Siemens, a connected refrigerator. Connected appliances would also allow for greater energy efficiency. However, these products are still struggling to fully convince French consumers. They represent less than 5% of the major household appliances available on the market. France also has 6 ème The world economy would only rank 16th in the world ème position among connected countries according to GfK, reflecting the delay of French consumers to adopt and consume connected products. Most of the growth in the connected appliance market has been captured and sustained by specialist retailers such as Darty, but also by pure-players in the e-commerce world such as Amazon. In order to differentiate themselves from these pure-players, consumer appliance brands have sought to renew the customer experience through their points of sale and a more immersive cross-channel strategy, for example by giving customers the opportunity to test new connected appliance products directly. It is also in the face of competition from pure-players that connected appliance retail chains have made significant mergers, following the example of Fnac and Darty or even after the takeover of the GPdis group at the end of 2017 by MDA Company, which now has the leading network of consumer appliance stores.