For keeping Asia cool, clean, fed and well-groomed, Panasonic stands out

CATEGORY ANALYSIS: HOME APPLIANCES

The home appliance category—encompassing air-conditioners, washing machines, rice cookers, vacuums, hair dryers, irons and more—is a competitive space where no one brand really dominates.

However, Panasonic emerges as the most consistent performer across the category, taking the top spot in the ranking of kitchen-appliance brands and second place in the other three sub-categories that make up the home-appliance category in our survey (air conditioners and purifiers; cleaning appliances; and personal-care appliances).

Panasonic's strength in these areas partly explains its perennial position near the top of the overall APAC Top 1000 Brands ranking, where it's been in the top five since 2009 and at No. 3 since last year. (The Japanese brand also remains a solid top-five performer in a number of consumer-electronics categories.)

However, if Panasonic has designs on moving into the top spot in the three home-appliance sub-categories it doesn't own now, it will have to reckon with some stalwarts:

• In air-conditioners and purifiers, Japanese brand Daikin has a strong hold on the top ranking. It's the No. 1 brand in two markets and the second-place finisher in another five. At 103 on this year's overall APAC Top 1000 Brands ranking, Daikin has hovered just short of becoming a top 100 brand for the last few years.
• In personal-care appliances (hair dryers, shavers, toothbrushes, and the like), Philips is the brand APAC consumers trust the most. So much so that the brand has earned the No. 1 position in seven markets (and is no lower than fifth in any of the rest). This category saw no changes to the top 10 since last year.

Korean brand LG, which has seen its fortunes decline in mobile phones, remains the second most consistent player in home appliances, finishing just behind Panasonic in the AC and cleaning categories, and in third place in the kitchen-gear ranking.

Beyond the above conclusions, the home-appliance space demonstrates a fair amount of market-by-market variation. For example, the top air-con brand is Fujitsu in Australia; Carrier in the Philippines; Mitsubishi in Thailand and New Zealand; LG in India, South Korea and Indonesia; Hitachi in Hong Kong and Taiwan; and Zhuhai-based Gree in China. The latter is a particular outlier, ranking no higher than 12th anywhere else.

Speaking of China, Haier—considered one of the country's great hopes to break out internationally—stands in 11th spot for air-conditioners/purifiers, 13th for kitchen appliances, and 14th for cleaning devices. If this is disappointing, the company can perhaps console itself with the fact that Fisher & Paykel, the New Zealand company Haier bought 90% of in 2012, has cracked the top 10 in cleaning appliances and stands at 11th in kitchen equipment.

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