’Bold Decision’
“It was a bold decision to switch from what was an increasingly crowded air treatment segment,” said Lorenza Della Santa, a senior consumer appliance analyst at Euromonitor. “They focused on an area where they could lead, as an Italian manufacturer, making Italian-style coffee machines and producing Italian-style coffee.”
The company generated 64 percent of its 2012 revenue from Europe, according to its annual report.
“Coffee makers have been the standout area within small kitchen appliances across Europe over the last few years with growth in both value and volume,” Anthony Williams, an analyst at global market researcher GfK SE, said in an e-mail.
At the same time the Italian manufacturer is looking for opportunities to expand in emerging markets. Fabio De’Longhi, Giuseppe’s son and the company’s chief executive officer, said on a May 2013 earnings call that he expects coffee machines to remain “major drivers” for growth.
“Coffee is an aspirational product, it’s something a lot of people identify with,” the Financial Times quoted him as saying in a January 2013 interview. “There are probably 50 million coffee machines sold a year now and there’s every chance this could double in the next 10 years, with De’Longhi taking a big share of the new opportunities.”