Chinese retailer Dazhong Electronics released a report on its appliances sales during the 2008 Olympic Games and Mao Xiaojun, general manager of Dazhong, said that the company's net profits doubled in the first six months of 2008.
The report shows that in July and August, the sales of flat-panel TV sets of Dazhong increased by 121%, ostensibly by consumers who wanted to watch the Olympics. Of those, sales of LCD TVs with screens of 42 inches and above reached 35,000. In addition, the sales of its computer, communications and consumer electronic products were tripled compared with the same period last year.
Commenting on Dazhong's performance over the past six months, Mao said that Dazhong was still one of the top appliances channels in Beijing. After its recent integration with Gome, the profitability of the company was increased greatly and it achieved a double increase in net profit in the first half of 2008. Referring to the process of integration, Mao added that the most difficult part was the integration of corporate cultures.
For consumers' concern on the price increase issues, Mao said that they had not received any notice from manufacturers and the company will not readily raise the prices even if they received a notice. He said that since 2000, price surges only happened in the air-conditioning sector in China's appliances industry. Once new products come into market, the prices of old appliances products will continue to decline.
