IFA 2020: Miele increases sales despite coronavirus pandemic

An oven with a camera that identifies food and controls the cooking process. Another digital aid that provides step-by-step assistance during frying, a washer-dryer that’s smarter and more convenient “than anything before”, and active humidification cooling technolo gy for superior food storage conditions.

These are just some of the highlights that the Gütersloh-based family-run Miele company unveiled this morning at its IFA press conference. It also provided an insight into the company’s business situation, reporting sales figures that surpassed those of the previous year. The information was delivered by Dr. Axel Kniehl (Executive Director Marketing and Sales) and Dr. Reinhard Zinkann (Executive Director and Co-Proprietor).

Zinkann, who is the great-grandson of one of Miele’s two founding fathers and shares the same name, said: “I am delighted to tell you that the Miele Group has coped quite well with this year so far.” Sales to date in the 2020 business year reached a level 2% higher than the same period in the previous year, Zinkann said, despite the significant slumps experienced in March and April due to the coronavirus situation.

“As things stand,” he continued, “we have achieved respectable growth, particularly in our key markets of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, in most of our Eastern European markets, and in markets such as China, Japan and Korea.”

While the financial update was by no means detailed; as a guide, turnover in the 2018/19 business year was around € 4.16 bn.

Miele is represented with its own sales subsidiaries and via importers in almost 100 countries/regions. Globally, the family-run enterprise, now in its fourth generation, employs a workforce of around 20,500 – 11,050 are employed in Germany. The company’s share of business outside Germany is around 71%.

Tags: ifa 2020, miele

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