De'Longhi 🇮🇹

De'Longhi is the company that turned portable air conditioning into a mass-market appliance. Its origins are modest: a workshop opened by the family in Treviso in 1902 to manufacture parts and wood stoves, which became a corporation in 1950 and for decades worked as a component supplier for other heating manufacturers. The change was led by Giuseppe De'Longhi in the mid‑seventies: in 1974 he launched the first product under its own brand, a portable electric oil radiator, which was a huge success and set the house’s direction: climate devices that plug in and can be moved.

In 1979 it bought Supercalor (stoves), in 1986 the oven manufacturer Elba and Radel (water heating), in 1987 Ariagel, a specialist in air conditioning, in 1989 Vetrella and in 1995 Simac Micromax. But the product that changed everything arrived in 1986: the Pinguino, presented as the first portable air conditioner that required no installation. The first television commercial had already been filmed in 1985 and the campaign became iconic thanks to the Orso Grigio who repeated “Tutti volere Pinguino De'Longhi”. To launch the brand worldwide, De'Longhi sponsored the Lotus Formula 1 team in the 1986‑87 seasons, with Ayrton Senna as the image in the advertisements. The Pinguino, in its air‑air and air‑water versions, with small external units hanging in the window in the early models, is today a classic: there are units still operating even in rooms of the Capitol Museums of Rome.

In the nineties the group entered professional air‑conditioning with Climaveneta and opened subsidiaries in the United States (1988), United Kingdom (1989), France (1990), the Netherlands, Japan and Germany (1993), as well as Spain. In the mid‑eighties it had a turnover of about 80 million euros; in 2003, 1 280 million. In 2001 it bought the British Kenwood for £45.9 million and the Italian Ariete, and went public on the Milan Stock Exchange. In 2004 it began the alliance with Nespresso that would turn it into a coffee giant; in 2012 it acquired the perpetual rights to the Braun brand for small appliances and in 2020 Capital Brands (NutriBullet) for $420 million.

The industrial climate branch (Climaveneta and RC Group) was spun off in 2012 into DeLclima, listed separately, and in 2015 it was sold to Mitsubishi Electric. Domestic air conditioning, however, remains at home: the current Pinguino models descend directly from the 1986 one. In 2021 De'Longhi generated 3.220 billion euros in revenue with 8,575 employees, under the presidency of Fabio De'Longhi, son of Giuseppe.

In Spain the Pinguino was, during the nineties, the quintessential portable, sold in department stores and appliance shops, long before the wall‑mounted split became democratized. A large part of the portable units that survive in Spanish storage rooms and second homes still carry its penguin on the case.

Pending verification

The year of purchase of Climaveneta differs between sources (1994 in the Italian Wikipedia, 2000 in the English one). The exact opening date of the Spanish branch could not be confirmed.

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us.