Electrolux sees good demand in near term after June sales recovery

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Europe's biggest home appliance maker Electrolux said on Friday it expected robust demand in the near term as it reported an operating loss roughly in line with preliminary earnings published just last week.

"In the near term, we see good demand, partially driven by pent-up demand from April/May and the strong stimulus programs," Electrolux CEO Jonas Samuelson said in a statement.

"However, for the full year 2020 we continue to expect negative demand in most of our main markets".

The maker of brands such as Frigidaire and Anova reported an operating loss of 62 million Swedish crowns ($6.83 million)(1,219), down from a 1.2 billion profit a year earlier, as the pandemic and related lockdowns weighed.

The company flagged last week it would make a quarterly operating loss of about 100 million crowns, much smaller than expected, with group sales seen at 23.5 billion crowns after returning to like-for-like growth in June.

($1 = 9.0832 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom; editing by Niklas Pollard)