Market research company Kantar has announced the recipients of its 2020 Domestic Appliance Awards, with Hisense and Beko named the brands which are the “Ones to Watch”.

Based on consumer feedback from Worldpanel’s Comtech Domestic Appliance panel, which surveys 45,000 homes in Europe’s five biggest markets, Kantar has announced winners across seven categories.

These include Online, Design and Style, Innovation in Premium, “Value for Me”, Trustworthy, Biggest Brand and Ones to Watch.

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LG was announced the winner of the Online category, as the manufacturer increased its EU5 sales online by 50% year-on-year.

Samsung was presented the Design & Style award, with 25% of recent Samsung purchasers saying design and style was an important factor in their decision-making process.

The Innovation in Premium category was awarded to AEG with the biggest proportion of its premium purchasers, 19.3%, choosing the brand because of innovation.

Beko scooped the “Value for Me” category, which is about “delivering a great product at a good price”, as 25.4% of its recent purchasers reported ‘value for me’ was the reason for purchase.

Miele dominated the Trust award, with over 26% of consumers choosing the brand as they wanted a trustworthy and high-quality brand.

While the Biggest Brand title was presented to Bosch which, across categories and markets in the EU5, is the most chosen brand reflected in both total sales in 2020 (13%) and in the total market installed base (13%).

The brands names Ones to Watch were Hisense and Beko, with Hisense labelled “an exciting brand to watch this year”.

Kantar reported it had seen improvements in penetration and more satisfied customers which it stated would help Hisense build on a good installed base through increasing future retention.

As a brand it is focusing on refrigeration and washing machines, and Kantar stated it is  “hitting some key areas such as ‘Value for Me’ and Design & Style”.

Chinese appliance manufacturer Hisense recently acquired the Slovenian company Gorenje and launched a range of cooking appliances.

Beko was also chosen as the appliance brand continues to grow across Europe.

Global home insight director at Kantar, Worldpanel Division, Piers Moore commented: “As we know, the impact of COVID-19 has been felt across Europe in many categories and Major Domestic Appliances (MDA)s have not escaped totally unscathed.

“As lockdown gripped Europe in the Spring, the closure of bricks and mortar stores and the disruption to the supply chain had an immediate impact on sales and distribution.

“However, as people embraced the enforced home experience, the importance of their core household appliances became apparent.

“Fridges/freezers, ovens, dishwashers, washing machines and dryers all need to function well in order to rise to the challenge of stockpiling and to keep families continuously clean and fed.

“This has enabled the MDA categories to be fairly resilient to the full impact of the pandemic with the DA market growing 1% year-on-year (Installed Base).”

Moore continued: “As the longer-term economic impact of COVID is revealed over coming months across Europe, we may see different purchase drivers impacting brand choice.

“As a relatively affluent region, hopefully in EU5 there should be resilience for purchasing across the MDA categories.

“Unfortunately, if the financial hardship in households extends through 2021 we may see price, basic functionality and availability of product driving more decisions rather than innovation and design.

“People will also look to strong brands they trust and can rely on to keep their families healthy, fed and clean.

“However, in view of the recent announcements of vaccine availability thankfully we now have strong reason to be optimistic that behaviours will normalise through the course of next year and we should be able to look forward to continued innovation in performance and sustainability practises.”