The electrical appliance sector is one of the Basque Country's most relevant, both because of its production as well as the number of jobs that it generates.  A report by the Cluster de Electrodomésticos de Euskadi (Acede) Group, which represents almost 40% of the entire sector at a national level and is composed by 20 companies, indicates that the sector employed 10,500 people in 2003 and attained 1,425 million euros in sales. 12% of the total sales come from international markets.

The sum of exports plus foreign production resulted in a balance of 648 million euros, with a drop of more than 6% compared to 2002.  Joint profits of the aforementioned companies increased 20%, the majority of which are part of the MCC Group.

It must be noted that Fagor Electrodomésticos has had sales of 1.8 billion euros in 2005 and is the fifth largest of the large European groups.

According to the latest economic report published by Caja Laboral, three groups that made up 56.5 % of the domestic market in 2005, currently dominate the Spanish white line electrical appliance market: The German group, Bosch-Siemens Electrodomésticos España -which took over Balay and BS Electrodomésticos- with a 24.1% share in 2005, situates itself as market leader; closely followed by the Basque group, Fagor, which is owned by Mondragon Corporación Cooperativa (MCC).  Fagor Electrodomésticos, being the group's principal company (which took over Endesa, S.C.L.) with a 22.4% share; and finally, the Swedish group, Electrolux, which incorporated Coberó, Ibelsa and Domar (with a 10% market share) into Electrolux España.

The white line electrical appliance offer is concludes with (behind Teka, from Santander with a 5.6% share in 2005 signed with Candy Hoover Electrodomésticos, from Guipuzcoa, which belongs to the Italian multinational Candy Elettrodomestici) an important market in top-loading washing machines and dishwashers and a 3.7% market share; Somolsa, a company from Vizcaya with an important market share in the kitchen sector and the Daewoo's (Korean multinational) refrigerator factory in Vitoria (Daewoo Electronics Manufacturing España S.A., -Demesa- ). It is worth mentioning that the factory in Vitoria is the prime candidate to manufacture the next generation of double door and large capacity refrigerators that the company intends to introduce in European countries.

The Basque presence abroad is represented by 9 manufacturing and distributing plants in the Czech Republic, Mexico, USA, Italy, Morocco, Argentina and Poland, over 30 company sales offices and a sales presence in over 60 countries, which means that approximately 20% of sector's volume is found to be outside the Basque Country.  The demand is especially active in Asia, highlighting the Chinese market.

Last revision: 30.10.2006