Gorenje, the Chinese-owned household appliances and consumer electronics maker, saw its net sales revenue rise by 16% last year to €2.53 billion. Net profit went up more than five-fold to to €21 million.

Based in Velenje in northeastern Slovenia, Gorenje is the main manufacturing company in the Hisense Europe group, which is headquartered in Ljubljana.

According to the company's annual report, revenue was boosted by a larger economy of scale, higher productivity, better cost management and a more favourable product structure.

The company posted the highest growth in West European markets, where sales revenue increased by 21% to €1.32 billion. In Eastern Europe sales were up by 13% to €1.08 billion.

Structure-wise, the share of West European markets in sales rose by 2.7 percentage points to 52.3%, while the share of Eastern European markets fell by one percentage point to 42.6%.

Last year Gorenje reduced its labour costs by 4% to €96.3 million. At the end of 2023 it employed 2,899 workers, down 3.5% from the year before.

Gorenje invested €34.4 million last year, nearly 60% of which was used for new equipment and buildings and the rest for research and development.

In February 2023 Hisense opened an innovation centre in Velenje, investing €2 million to set up the centre and around €45 million into research and development.

This was part of a larger set of investments into new generations of household appliances that is running until November 2024. The company will invest around €39 million and receive around €9 million in state co-funding.