Cleanness in large portions

Shopping trends – efficiency and rapidity – favoured small shops, drugstores and discount supermarkets.

Viktória Ficsor
brand manager
Unilever Magyarország

Viktória Ficsor, brand manager of Unilever Magyarország Kft.:

“All four of our brands in the Home&Hygiene category (Domestos, Cif, Flóraszept and Szavo) continued to develop. From these Domestos has remained the market leader, the good performance of which was driven by disinfectants and toilet cleaner gels.”

Sales of toilet rim blocks grew by approximately 4% in 2022.

Eszter Guba, brand manager of Henkel Magyarország Kft.:

Eszter Guba 
brand manager
Henkel Magyarország

“Bref sales were up 2% and this was enough for the brand to hold on to its strong market leader position.”

Green innovations

The Bref brand of Henkel Magyarország Kft. has a large selection of toilet rim block products. Ms Guba told that every year they are making their product portfolio greener, increasing the proportion of recycled plastic in packaging and adopting greener shipping routes and manufacturing processes. Bref is an innovative brand that dares to dream and then realise these dreams, so that it can retain the trust of consumers.

Consumers are price-sensitive but loyal

One of the biggest trends in the last few years was offering products to consumers that simplify cleaning, e.g. sprays, wet wipes. Ms Ficsor reported that Cif scouring cream and the disinfectant products that form the basis of the core Domestos portfolio see their market shrinking, which primarily results in lower volume sales. Basket sizes are reducing and people have been preferring large-sized products since the pandemic, which results in the dropping of buying frequency. In the current economic situation shoppers are focusing on good price-value ratio, but at the same time they are staying loyal to their good old brands. Ms Guba said Bref has a loyal buyer base, who are satisfied with the steady high quality of the products.

Renewal and optimisation

The Domestos Extended Power disinfectants of Unilever Magyarország Kft. have strong traditions in Hungarian households. New Domestos formats are also more and more popular, such as wet wipes and limited edition Power5 toilet rim blocks. Szavo is a brand that basically stands for mould removal. Sprays represent a growing category for the Flóraszept and Cif brands. Ms Ficsor revealed that 2023 will be much more about renewal and optimisation for the company than about the launching of new innovations. //

Moderate sales growth in the cleaning product category

Guest writer:
Katalin Séra
senior analyst
NielsenIQ

Shoppers spent a little less than HUF 21bn on the category. Volume sales fell 11% and Hungarians bought 23 million litres of cleaning product in the 12-month period. Multifunctional cleaners and bleaches have the biggest share in the market, both of them are at around 20%.

Manufacturer brands have stayed dominant as 90% of value sales were realised by these. Most of the money spent on cleaning products went to drugstores, which had a 30% share in the sum spent on cleaners, followed by 401-2,500m² stores at 25%; in volume sales it was the other way round, with 401-2,500m² shops having a 30% share and drugstores being at 25%. //

This article is available for reading in Trade magazin 2023.2-3.