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MEXICO CITY -- Masco Corp. is betting that its aggressive moves into Mexico will get it on the ground floor of the burgeoning home-center market.
After pushing for nearly three years to capture the plumbing-products segment of the Mexican home-center market, Taylor-based Masco officially opened its first Mexico City sales office three weeks ago.
So far, the intense efforts -- which included an acquisition -- are paying off: Masco controls 100 percent of the market share in plumbing products for the more than six home-center stores open in Mexico, said Maria Fernanda Garza, manager of sales and marketing for MascoMex, Masco's new Mexican division. The home-center market is only 15 percent of the total home and construction market, but the potential is tremendous, Gana said.
Masco's target market comprises high- and middle-income Mexican consumers, estimated to be 37 percent of the country's population, Garza said, based on marketing studies done by Lintas Mexico. Income levels in U.S. dollars range from more than $70,000 a year for the very wealthy (3 percent) to nearly $11,000 a year for the lower end of the middle class (13 percent).
Masco gutted and renovated the three-story MascoMex office, a rundown but elegant former home in one of Mexico City's most upscale parts of town, Polanco. The area is filled with expensive shops, offices and fine restaurants.
MascoMex is an umbrella company for the 14 Masco companies selling home products in Mexico, to streamline administrative, billing, purchasing and customs procedures for customers, said George Herrera, director of international sales for Masco Corp., MascoTech Inc. and TriMas Corp.
The home-center marketing concept is new to Mexican consumers. While these glorified hardware and department stores for the DIY -- do-it-yourself -- breed have become a common part of the U.S. retailing landscape, they are a relatively new arrival in Mexico, where paying for service and manual labor is ingrained in tradition.
The entry of home-center stores two years ago neatly coincides with the developing Mexican middle class, which -- until the crash of the peso in December -- was finding it more affordable to own a home than before, said William Patterson, an international retail and marketing consultant specializing in Mexico as president of William E. Patterson & Associates in Newport...