PSG sponsor arrives in Brazil and wants TV market – 05/26/2023 – Market

First, it brought back Toshiba televisions. Before that, it already occupied very high-end kitchens through Gorenje, a brand of appliances whose main differential is to be hidden between the cupboards. Now, the Chinese giant Hisense wants to make its flagship brand known.

The arrival in the country dates from the end of last year, with a strategy of acclimatization of the brand in the Brazilian market to guarantee what the vice-president of Hisense for Brazil, Matjas Cokan, calls a sustainable growth, step by step.

Sales, through a partnership with Via, owner of Casas Bahia, Ponto and Extra.com.br, started in March and responded well to the plan to grow little by little and become known. Via’s presence began with seven stores; is now at 38.

The company sponsored the Qatar World Cup in 2022. Lionel Messi, Argentina’s idol, winning team in the FIFA tournament, stars in the brand’s advertising pieces across Europe, where Hisense sponsors, for the third year in a row, Paris Saint-Germain. Germain – where the Brazilian Neymar Jr also plays, about to leave the French club.

“We are getting to know the market, placing promoters [de venda]because our brand, although it is big abroad, here it is not known”, says Matjas.

The company does not disclose how much it has already invested or intends to invest in the coming years, but it plans to make Brazil its second largest market in the Americas, behind only the United States, in at least five years.

Currently, only Toshiba televisions are being produced in Brazil, at the Multi plant (new name of Multilaser) in the Free Trade Zone of Manaus (AM). The Brazilian company imports the components, assembles and distributes the devices.

Hisense takes care of marketing, engineering support and quality control, but sales and after-sales are with Multi.

The rest of the line for sale under the Hisense brand is 100% imported, but they arrive here with displays and manuals in Portuguese, ready for retail.

Refrigerators, washing machines and dishwashers, stoves, cooktops, air conditioners and ovens are brought from the brand’s factories in Asia and Europe and, eventually, they should also come from Mexico, where a new plant was inaugurated to meet the demand of US consumers for televisions.

Hisense’s main bets to become known in Brazil come from screens, since the country is considered the fourth largest market for the product in the world. Brazilians’ interest in television and the gamer world are important fronts for the brand. As of the second half of the year, laser models, which use an external projector for image formation, begin to arrive in the country.

Producing in Brazil, however, is not ruled out. Importing all appliances gives the Chinese manufacturer a competitive disadvantage compared to those that are able to produce locally. To compensate, the company bets on design –cleaner and straighter– and on the level of energy efficiency.

The moment, however, is to understand the demand. In Mexico, the first production plant was built two years after the products arrived in that country. Today, there are already three. Globally, there are 31 industrial parks and 66 offices.

“We still don’t have our own manufacturing, but we are already looking at some options, negotiating. For the future, the plan is local manufacturing.”

In the evaluation of Hisense’s vice-president for Brazil, coming to the country was a natural step and even a little late. “All brands are here.”

Particularities of the national market and even of the industry led the company to arrive “by the edges”, before entering neighboring markets such as Chile and Argentina. “Brazil has enormous potential and we are still behind the competition here. It is not the situation in the USA, Mexico and even Chile and Argentina, we have a great presence there”, says Matjas.

“But Brazil has always been very challenging because it is a very closed market, this whole tax issue, for a foreign company it is a dragon with seven heads, you cut one, two grow.”

Worldwide, Hisense is the second largest TV manufacturer, according to the consultancy AVC Revo. The brand reached first place in December last year, when it distributed 2.326 million television sets. In all of 2022, there were 24.4 million units. The group’s sales revenue reached US$ 27.2 billion (about R$ 135 billion).