North lags behind South in adoption of inverter ACs

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 9

When it comes to sale of room air conditioners (ACs) with inverter technology, the northern region lags behind its southern counterpart despite these being more energy efficient.

Out of total ACs sold in the North, the share of inverter ACs is around 50% as compared to 80% in the South. The domestic room AC market is estimated at 65-70 lakh units per annum.

“The adoption of inverter ACs has increased in the past couple of years owing to improvement in consumers’ understanding of the technology which is more energy efficient. However, the adoption is faster in South than in North. The consumers and local technicians in North still apprehend it’s a complex technology and this is the main factor behind the slow adoption rate in North,” said Gurmeet Singh, chairman and managing director, Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning India Ltd.

“Now, since the cost of these ACs is only 7-8% higher than non-inverter ACs, we foresee faster adoption in near future,” he said.

On growth, he said, “In the current fiscal, we foresee a 30% growth on the residential side over the base of 2019-20 and around 40-50% growth compared to 2020-21, based on early sales trend.”