Indesit Domestic Appliances

Appliance Manufacturer & Brand Information

In 1930, Aristide Merloni founded Industrie Merloni in Albacina, on the outskirts of Fabriano. Business was initially concentrated on the production of weigh scales and subsequently diversified into liquid gas cylinders and hot water heaters. From this was born the Ariston brand name.

In 1975 the name changed from Household Appliances Division of Industrie to Merloni Elettrodomestici and to this day the company is still referred to in the trade as Merloni despite the name change in 2005 to Indesit Company.

It is worth noting however that this is not the same company as Antonio Merloni who produced the Servis Appliances in the UK as well as many branded products until they collapsed in 2008. Servis is now a Vestel brand.

Ariston and Indesit are the Company's two main brands in Europe. Also sold in Europe is the Scholtes brand and Philco.

In the UK Indesit now also own the Hotpoint, Creda and Cannon brands as well.

Ariston is the Company's "historic" brand. The Ariston brand focuses on the built-in appliance sector but is also ranked among the top players for free standing installations. In the UK however it is not a well regarded brand due to trade criticism and poor past reliability on some products after the well remembered "on and on" campaign of the 1980's.

Indesit is sold 36 countries throughout the world and 350 million people are aware of its existence. Indesit seems to be a low-cost brand and the appliances are often treated by repairers as more or less throw-away. Low prices have fuelled volume sales.

Many don't really see Indesit for being as large as they are but, they are one of the largest domestic appliance producers in Europe. In the UK alone they have a 38% share of the home laundry market (industry figures, 2010) and an almost 15% share of the entire European appliance market. It is a massive company.

In the UK we suspect that the large market share that Indesit has is driven purely by the Hotpoint brand name as many people do not realise that the Hotpoint branded appliances are no longer British or made in the UK.

During 2014 however the entire Indesit Group was bought by Whirlpool.

Traditionally both Indesit and Ariston have been at the lower end of the market trading purely on volume. Creda has for some time been used as a vehicle to access the low price volume market along with the old English Electric brand which is rolled out now and again.

Hotpoint is being traded in the low to mid sector of the market with some exceptions, such as the new Aqualtis machines which appear to be aimed squarely at Bosch. That aim appearing to be to push the Ariston and Hotpoint names to a more premium footing and leaving the others at the lower end of the marketplace.