- Market Overview
The Brita pitcher is a water filter system created by a German company that allows customers to purify the tap water and though competes on the bottled water market. In the US this product has been sold by Clorox Company since 1988 and its market share in the home water purifying systems segment was 69% in 1998.
After the Brita’s pitcher launch the water quality as become of growing concern to consumers as some largely publicized contamination water situations affected population’s health. A water consumption behavior survey shows a decrease on the percentage of consumers that don’t use any purification device nor drink bottled water from 47% to 35% from 1995 to 1999. This change on consumers’ attitude towards water quality as allowed the purified water market to grow in both bottled water and filter systems.
Filter purifying systems can be classified between pitchers and faucet-mounted. The filtering pitchers are filled with tap water and the replaceable filter removes lead and cooper, as well as reduces sediment water hardness and chlorine taste. The pitcher can be stored in the refrigerator and it’s a portable system, allowing flexibility of use. On the other hand, in the faucet-mounted systems water is passed through at higher pressure allowing microorganisms filtration, offering a higher protection level.
The water purifying systems are characterized by high retention rates, since both systems (pitchers or faucet-mounted) use replaceable filters, generating repeated filter sales for a large period, regarding the average system lifetime. This means that companies could support low return rates on system sales since they were achieving higher returns on filter sales that happened for long periods. It is also important to notice that pitcher filter costs are higher than the faucet-mounted ones, since that filters last shorter.
Several companies were attracted to the water purifying systems market, although by 1998 none of them...