Air-conditioned domestic market is expected to reach 35.45 million units this year

By the end of 2012, inverter air conditioners had a market share of over 44% in the urban market, gradually tying up fixed-frequency air conditioners, and Gome's inverter sales volume had exceeded 51%, exceeding the fixed-frequency air conditioner market for the first time. At the same time, the energy efficiency structure within the inverter air conditioner market is also undergoing significant changes.

In 2013, the retail volume of the domestic air-conditioning market is expected to reach 35.45 million units and RMB 121.3 billion, which represents an increase of 8.6% and 11.2% year-on-year, respectively, and will achieve relatively significant growth. The recovery of commercial housing and the large-scale supply of affordable housing will provide strong support for the air-conditioner sales in the market, especially in the first and second-tier markets. It is estimated that the sales volume of air conditioners in the first and second-tier markets will reach 70 billion yuan in 2013, an increase of 7.0% from 2012. The speeding up of urbanization will stimulate domestic demand market demand. There is still room for strong growth in the third and fourth tier markets. It is expected that sales volume in the third and fourth tier markets will be approximately 51.3 billion yuan in 2013, an increase of 17.4% year-on-year, accounting for a share of the national market capacity to 42%. %.

Based on the support of the government's policy of "energy-saving, energy-saving, and benefiting people", inverter air conditioners will further reduce the price gap with fixed-frequency air-conditioners and consolidate market advantages under the joint efforts of air-conditioning manufacturers and channel distributors. At the same time, with the sinking of channels and the digestion of inventories, inverter air conditioners will also quickly infiltrate into the third and fourth-tier markets. The "Report" predicts that in 2013, the retail volume of inverter air conditioners will reach 20.95 million units, accounting for 59% of the total market volume.

The manufacturers joined forces to make early efforts. In 2012, although the overall air-conditioning market experienced negative growth, it felt that the industry was clearly picking up at the vendor level in 2013 and had a new understanding of the consumer market. On the macro level, Lee Juntao, senior vice president of Gome, believes that the promulgation of the country’s five regulations this year will make investment property purchases be suppressed, but rising rigid demand will lead to rapid growth in air conditioner sales. With the acceleration of urbanization, air conditioners will become the main force for newly purchased household appliances in the secondary market after color TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.

Regarding changes in consumer trends, Li Juntao said that as the ecology and the environment become the objects of increasing concern for people, the focus of air-conditioning functions has been considered from a few years ago in terms of appearance and comfort to consider more energy-saving. At present, health functions have become the first element of purchase. In addition to formaldehyde, PM2.5 has become a consumer demand for air conditioning. In addition, two-stage inverter air conditioners have become mainstream, and the proportion of air conditioners purchased is still increasing. At present, the trend of upgrading energy-efficient energy-saving air-conditioning has been called.

How to put pressure on the air-conditioning market in 2013, companies have already done a layout. Lu Jianfeng, vice president of the Home Air Conditioning Division of Midea Group, said that the energy-saving, environmental-friendly, noise-reducing and quiet air-conditioning products are the main push for the United States in the store this year. According to Wang Youning, general manager of Haier Air Conditioning Global, Haier has drafted and formulated relevant standards in addition to PM2.5, indicating that healthy and energy-saving air conditioners are still Haier's product lines.

At present, Gome has signed a large-scale procurement contract with dozens of domestic and foreign air-conditioning manufacturers for a total of 5.5 million sets of products. At the same time, the scale of purchases has reached new heights. Gome predicts that air-conditioning prices will drop by 5% in 2013.