--By Rashika Pokharel

 

Sales of air conditioners, air coolers and fans is surging this summer as the temperature continues soaring high. Along with that increasing urbanization and speedy growth in the number of corporate offices, business complexes and shopping malls across the country is also contributing to the trend. Many national and international home appliance brands are competing for a share of this market. 

 

Market for Air Conditioners

Some of the major players in this segment of home appliances are CG, Diakin, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, McQuay, Midea and LG. Along with elegant and attractive designs, these players are competing in the market with features like fast cooling system, flower design, sleep mode, defrosting system, easy to clean filters and so on. With continuous evolution and improvements, ACs these are more eco-friendly and consumer less power- enabling to work for prolonged hours during power cut through inverters. This has also attracted more users. 

 

Sale of ACs has been steadily increasing for some years now. "The demand for ACs has increased from 10 to 15 per cent as compared to the last year," Bibek Gyawali, Deputy Manager at Chaudhary Groups, said. This growth has been also complimented with the availability of two ranges of ACs: residential air conditioners (RACs) and commercial air conditioners (CACs). 

 

RACs are more popular and have high demand as they can be used for both residential as well as commercial purpose. "The sales of RACs is 60 percent leaving the rest of 40 percent to CACs," says Gyawali while informing that the price of RAC ranges between Rs40,000 to Rs 60,000,depending upon the capacity and that of CAC ranges betweenRs90,000 to Rs2,10,000. 

 

CACs are mainly targeted for the commercial buildings like shopping malls, banks and hotels. They are equipped with variable refrigerant flow (VRF) technology. Such technology helps to overcome the problem of ugly looks as such a system many AC units are connected with one major conditioning unit through underground pipelines. Powered with highly efficient inverter driven compressors, these ACs ensure smooth control of power consumption resulting in higher energy efficiency. Brands like LG, Diakin, and Mitsubishi offer multi VRF range of ACs.

 

Nepali Brand taking the Market

Along with international brands, Nepal made ACs are also highly promising. CG air conditioners are gradually getting popular among the Nepali customers. This brand currently offers four types of ACs: split, wall mounted, ceiling and cassette. "Customers prefer different models depending upon the size and design of their space and depending on the model and capacity, prizes of ACs range between Rs45,890 to Rs2,09,890," Rajen Sangpang, showroom manager at Chaudhary Groups, said. These ACs come with noise reduction technology, digital display system, remote control system and a 12 months warranty.

 

Fans: Fanning the Heat Market

While air conditions are high quality products that demand higher prices, fans are more popular among users for their affordable prices. There are many types of fans available in the market and of these stand fan and wall fans are the most popular ones as they are convenient  for domestic purpose. Along with that, manufacturers have also rolled out fans tailored specially for industrial and commercial purposes. 

 

Traditionally, fans were mostly available in white and brown colours. But with the change in users attitude and living style that comprises of modern interior designs, fans have been coming in a variety of colours. Bineet Kumar Sharda, managing director at Premier Overseas Pvt Ltd, says that they have fans in more than 145 colours. He said that in Kathmandu's scenario customers prefer premium quality decorative fans, adding that white and brown fans are mostly popular in village and rural areas where purchasing power of the user is relatively low as compared to users in urban areas. 

 

Wide ranges of brands are competing in this segment of which major ones are Orient, Midea, Bajaj and Usha. "The demand for fans is really good. In terms of sale volume, Orient fans are leading the segment,” Sharda said adding that Orient and Midea fans, combined together, hold 50 per cent of the total Nepali market. He further added that fan sales have been increasing every year and shared that their sales target for this year is 70 thousand, 50 percent greater than last year.

 

There are varieties of light and light LED fans in the market with prices ranging from seven to eight thousand rupees. While stating that they have been providing premium quality fans at prices ranging from Rs 13000 to 11000, Sharda said that they are “planning to introduce premium quality range of fans, which will cost around Rs 25000."

 

Chinese fans have been great competitor in this segment in the past years. However due to lower durability and lack of long term warranty as provided by the Indian fans, they are gradually loosing market.

 

 

Future of Fans and Air conditioners

Despite prolonged hours of power cut, demand for fans and coolers have not decreased. In fact manufacturers are rolling outback up power systems that enable fans and ACs to work for five and five hours straight. Similarly, fans and ACs have become a compulsion for commercial buildings so they have come up with alternative options such as inverters and generators. Considering these facts and trends, sales of these products is definitely going to rise.