What opportunities does the COVID-19 pandemic bring to the air purifier industry?

At the beginning of 2020, the sudden outbreak of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus had a significant impact on China's economic and social development. With the joint efforts of party committees, governments and epidemic prevention agencies at all levels, the effect of epidemic control has become apparent. The outbreak of the new crown epidemic has caused some companies to suffer heavy losses in revenue and cash flow, and some companies are even facing the dilemma of production suspension. Surprisingly, in such an economic environment, health appliances have ushered in a wave of counter-cyclical growth, and air purification products have returned to the public's attention. It is understood that in the nearly two months since the epidemic, many changes have taken place at all levels of the air purification industry.

"Smog" comes from "epidemic" to save the market

The saying “smog is both the cause of success and the cause of failure” can still be used to describe the current air purifier market.

Between 2014 and 2016, haze received widespread attention from all walks of life. The almost blank Chinese air purification market ushered in an explosive period and reached its peak in 2015. In this year, the retail sales of my country's air purification market increased by 162.7%, and more than 700 brands joined this market. It can be said that it was the craziest year for the air purification market. After that, the air purification industry was like riding a roller coaster, with ups and downs. In the major air purifier consumption areas headed by Beijing, the air purification market is now mostly depressed. According to statistics released by the Beijing Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau, the average concentration in Beijing from January to August 2019 dropped to 42 micrograms/cubic meter, the lowest value in the same period since monitoring data was available. At the same time, in the first half of 2019, my country's purifier market was 4.44 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 18.1%, and sales were 2.156 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 12.2%. 139 brands withdrew from the air purifier market, which is regrettable.

However, no one expected that an epidemic in early 2020 would cause the air purifier market to surge again.

Ms. Wang, a citizen, recently purchased two air purifier products. "I recently learned that air purifiers can not only remove haze and formaldehyde, but also filter viruses. It gave me a lot of sense of security during the epidemic at home. Considering the resumption of work in the future, I also bought a car purifier, which makes me feel more at ease." Ms. Wang said.

It is understood that during the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, there were many people like Ms. Wang who bought air purifier products. Wanxiang Data studied the comments (349 and 366) of online two-purifier users (air purifier and water purifier) ​​related to the epidemic during the epidemic period (January 20-February 20) and found that: under the influence of the epidemic, the attention of air purifier users to "sterilization and disinfection" has increased significantly. In addition, in the special scenario of the "epidemic", functions such as "formaldehyde removal", "detection and deodorization", "power consumption" and "filter element" have also been mentioned. Data from Aowei Cloud Network also shows that online sales of air purifiers increased by 15% in the first 11 weeks of 2020.

Companies have also taken action and actively deployed the production of air purification products. Among them, the "virus-killing" air purifier launched by Gree, which was used in two designated hospitals on the front line of the fight against the epidemic in Wuhan, won unanimous praise from netizens.

The short-term market education period has arrived

Does this mean that air purifiers, whose demand was boosted by the epidemic, will return to their peak?

Industry insiders have predicted that this "comeback" will be short-lived. "The recent hot sales of air purification products are more due to consumers' panic over the epidemic. It is essentially a blind consumption in pursuit of psychological comfort, just like consumers bought purifiers to prevent smog 8 years ago. As the problem is gradually solved, consumption will gradually become rational."

This is indeed the case. According to Tian Yali, general manager of the environmental health appliance division of Aowei Cloud Network, "As the epidemic is brought under control, the decline in user demand has led to a market correction. It is expected that the purifier market will still maintain a decline of more than 20% in the first quarter." Aowei Cloud Network's online data shows that the online purifier market reached its peak in February, with sales increasing by 68.8% year-on-year, but from the 10th week, the online purifier market sales turned from positive to negative. It is estimated that the overall market sales of purifiers in the first quarter of 2020 will be only 1.86 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 20.5%, which is basically the same as the same period in 2019. This means that the epidemic has limited impact on the sales scale of purifiers in the first quarter, and the market is still difficult to change the downward trend.

From the perspective of the development of purifiers in my country, the current ownership rate of purifiers is still below 10 per 100 households, which is much lower than that of Japan, South Korea and the United States. This market still has huge potential. How to make consumers continue to pay attention to air purifiers is an issue that the entire industry needs to pay attention to. In addition to relevant associations issuing rules to regulate the market and channels increasing resource allocation, companies should actively and proactively reach out to consumer groups, popularize relevant knowledge about purifiers to consumers through offline home testing, online live broadcasts and other multi-touchpoint methods, and increase market education efforts.

Speaking of market education, in recent years, as long as some companies see business opportunities, they will rush into the "trend" like moths to a flame, and enter in a swarm, and the same is true for market promotion. Companies used to swarm to use "smog removal" as the main selling point, and now "antivirus" seems to have become the standard of air purifiers. But in fact, although the products on sale have strengthened the emphasis on sterilization and disinfection in the promotion, and urgently produced relevant inspection certificates, the product functions are still in the removal of formaldehyde and formaldehyde or TVOC and other gas digital displays. This cannot help but remind people of the false propaganda problem that was prevalent in the air purifier industry before. Diversification and different voices may be what our era and the current market need most.

As the article "To Friends Who Like to Think" says: "People are used to getting an answer to put their concerns at ease. However, people don't know that the world we live in, everything we encounter, see and hear, including our own lives, are all stacked into people's hearts in the form of questions rather than answers." This also raises a new topic for the marketing managers of various air purifiers: "In addition to sterilization and disinfection, what other unique selling points can our products have?"