Samsung is investing in its UK supply chain and expanding warehouse capabilities, to support double digit growth.

Vice president head of home appliances Europe at Samsung, Dan Harvie reported on the performance of the company: “Our business has performed extremely well over the last two to three years, in terms of our core categories. Built-in, as a category, over indexes that overall growth.

“We are on track for our built-in business to be twice as large as it was pre-pandemic.

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“We’ve had a really great last couple of years building momentum, both through introduction of new product, expansion of portfolio, but also through expansion of our distribution partnership as well.”

Despite reporting the appliance market was starting to see some post-pandemic slowdown, Dan Harvie was optimistic about sales in the second half of the year: “Market size across core categories like refrigeration, laundry and built-in is still larger than pre-pandemic. So, the market demand is still higher.

“But some of those categories and certain areas of those categories have started to slow from a year-on-year perspective.

“Our position within that market, with all the incremental headroom for growth, means we’ll be able to grow and accelerate our growth within those categories.”

Harvie said a major focus was on strengthening its distribution of kitchen retail studios, “which we’ve been making great progress on” and was “one of the areas we are growing fastest, in terms of our kitchen distribution.”

He pointed to the success of trade exhibition Kbb Birmingham helping strengthen partnerships through new and existing kitchen studios, with the launch of a new range of built-in cooking and showcasing its Bespoke refrigeration.

To support the continued growth of its business, Samsung is investing in UK warehousing to help mitigate the global challenges of supply, as Harvie explained: “We’re not immune to some of those global macro challenges. Every brand and manufacturer has had to face into some of those things.”

However, he pointed out: “There are clearly advantages of being part of a sizeable business, globally, in terms of scale when it comes to sourcing components, freights and transportation. We’ve been able to mitigate the vast majority of some of those challenges and headwinds.

“Our UK supply chain and warehousing capability will be expanded in the second half of the year.

“Our future logistic set-up and warehousing capability, which will be onstream from the second half of the year, will give us enough headroom to continue with the double-digit growth that our business has seen.”

Samsung will also be exhibiting at FTK and Eurocucina, which will feature an “extended” line-up of built-in product and Bespoke refrigeration.

“Our future vision of Bespoke in the home will be a large part of what we’ll talk about”, Harvie said.

Samsung recently revealed a limited edition Union Jack version of its Bespoke refrigeration to celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, as well as recognise its Royal Warrant for TVs will be extended to cover a larger range of products and appliances.

Speaking about the future for Samsung appliances sales, Harvie said built-in will continue to be one of the brand’s “critical” growth drivers, as he added: “We want to continue to grow as an overall business, of course, in our core categories of refrigeration and laundry.

“We know a number of customers and consumers still want a statement large format, America side-by-side multi-door product.

“We’re brilliantly placed to be able to exploit that but built-in will certainly be one of our fastest-growing categories within our overall portfolio, as we continue to invest heavily in that product area.”