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• Head of Electrolux 'wants to do something new’

Sweden's Electrolux, a global household appliance company, reported a 15-percent drop in quarterly profit on Wednesday saying it had suffered from a sales fall in its main markets, in Europe and mainly the United States.

The giant group also said that it had been set back by unfavourable exchange rates.

Other negative factors were a big rise in the cost of raw materials and increased marketing costs, outgoing chief executive Hans Straaberg said in a report on the third quarter.

Net profit in the quarter was 1.38 billion kronor (148 million euros, 204 million dollars) from 1.63 billion kronor at the same time last year.

Sales fell by 5.0 percent to 26.33 billion kronor.

Analysts had expected a weaker net profit figure of 1.12 billion kronor but a higher sales figure at 27.33 billion kronor, according to a poll by Dow Jones Newswires.

The price of shares in the company showed a gain of 1.9 percent to 173 kronor in early trading. The overall market here was showing a rise of 0.1 percent.

Straaberg said: "Substantial increases in raw material costs and increased investments in marketing account for somewhat lower earnings than last year."

He said that "we are now expanding in regions with strong growth" and referred to the recent acquisition of the leader in the Middle East and North Africa, Egyptian company Olympic, and the purchase of a Ukrainian maker of clothes washing machines to expand in eastern Europe.

In Asian-Pacific markets, where the group achieves just 8.0 percent of its sales, it achieved record high results.

But the group said that strong growth of sales in the Asia-Pacific region and in Latin America had only partly compensated for a fall of sales volume in Europe and North America.

However, in Europe, positive signs were appearing in Germany, France, Sweden and Italy.

The company achieves 37 percent of its sales in Europe and 34 percent in North America.

Electrolux is the second-biggest household appliance group in the world after Whirlpool.

The sector has been marked for many years by a stream of restructuring moves because global sales were easing and competition from low-cost regions rising.

Electrolux has closed many sites recently, in France, Italy, Spain and the United States, and also in Russia and in China.

Straaberg, who has run the group for nine years, is to leave at the end of the year and be replaced by the director for research and development Keith McLoughlin.