The air purifier industry has been declining for five years, and its future prospects are bleak

With the establishment and implementation of China's "double carbon" strategic goal, China's air environment has become better and better, which is a fatal blow to the air purifier industry that depends on the weather. However, although the performance of the air purifier industry is not ideal, our living environment is getting better and better, which is worth celebrating.

In fact, the air purifier industry has been very popular in the past few years, but it has become very sluggish in recent years, which is also expected. The air environment will only become better and better, and will certainly not become worse and worse. When the air environment is good enough, it does not need the existence of air purifiers, or the use rate of air purifiers is getting lower and lower.

According to the data of Ovi Cloud, the retail sales of air purifiers in the first half of 2022 was 2.13 billion yuan, an increase of 24% year on year, and the retail sales were 1.29 million units, a decrease of 29% year on year. In fact, since 2018, the sales of air purifiers have dropped precipitously, and the decline of air purifier products has not stopped by June 2022. At present, the market size of air purifiers has been at a historical low.

Why is the air purifier industry declining year by year, and has been declining for nearly five years? The author believes that this is related to two factors, the first is the qualitative change of the air environment, the second is that some fresh air conditioners take into account the function of air purification, and the third is the emergence of fresh air system products that replace air purifiers.

I remember that the best selling time of air purifiers was probably around 2013. In the north, there were severe haze days in winter, which made air purifiers become household products overnight, and the production scale and sales scale continued to expand. According to the data, from 2015 to 2017, the air purifier market witnessed a continuous and substantial growth, and the annual growth rate of new registration of relevant enterprises reached 96%.

However, since 2017, with the continuous increase of national policies to control haze, the current situation of haze has been greatly improved, and the transformation of the air environment has officially brought the air purifier industry into a cold winter. The frequent occurrence of haze is the factor that leads to the hot sale of air purifiers. After solving the problem of haze, the industry of air purifiers naturally ushered in a downturn.

The second reason is the emergence of air conditioners that take into account air purification, making air purifiers redundant household appliances. At present, many air conditioners in the market take into account the role of air purification. Through the exchange of indoor and outdoor air, the dust in the air is filtered out, and more fresh air is introduced into the room to achieve the role of air purification.

Although most of the air conditioners operate in winter and summer, and the time of starting up and running in spring and autumn is not much, it does not affect the functions of the air conditioners in sterilization and air purification. In particular, the air conditioner with fresh air function can almost cover the air purifier to form a substitute, so that there is no need to purchase the air purifier separately.

The third reason is the emergence of the fresh air system that replaces the air evolutioner. The fresh air system is the integration of an air purification system, including a series of air purification and circulation systems such as ventilator, pipeline and air purification. In general, it is to pump out the indoor polluted air, and the outside fresh air is imported into the room through the purification system to keep the indoor fresh air forever.

According to the big data of Ovi Cloud Real Estate, the sales scale of fresh air system is expected to reach 2020000 units in 2020, with a year-on-year increase of 38%. The sales volume is nearly 20 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 36%.

It is not difficult to find that the improvement of the air environment makes the market of the air purifier itself shrinking. In addition, the fresh air conditioning and fresh air system continue to erode the market of the air purifier, and the prospect of the air purifier is still relatively low.