Air Conditioning Market - Air Conditioner Adoption Skyrocketing Globally: Possible Challenges

On a scorching summer day, there is hardly anything that can beat the refreshing coolness of an air-conditioned space. It is no wonder that in recent years, rising disposable incomes have been pushing the global air conditioner market forward. Moreover, research shows that AC consumerism is likely to boom this century, propelling residential electricity usage up to 83%, almost double the amount of overall residential electricity in use today.

AC adoption is already skyrocketing in such countries as Brazil, Mexico and China. In 2013, AC sales in China were eight times higher than AC sales in the U.S. Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Nigeria are among the other countries that are expected to experience a surge of AC sales.

With such vertiginous dynamics and prospects of further meteoric growth in this industry, though, come some sobering facts. The increasing number of air conditioning units means more energy consumed, and more electricity produced, which translates into more carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere, which have a serious impact on the environment.

However, it may be a bit too early to panic. After all, rising sales of air conditioners will undoubtedly push manufacturers to search for ways to make AC units more energy-efficient, to reduce electricity usage and CO2 emissions. Still, it is still hard to say for sure whether even these potential technological changes will be enough to ward off the clear risks involved.

The global air conditioning market is dominated by China. In 2014, China exported 44 million units of air conditioning machines totaling 9,963 million USD, 3% under the previous year. Its primary trading partner was Japan, where it supplied 14.5% of its total air conditioning machine exports in value terms, accounting for 88% of Japan's total imports.

From 2007 to 2014, China was a net exporter of air conditioning machines. In this period, exports consistently exceeded imports in value terms.

Thailand and the U.S. were among the other main global suppliers of air conditioning machines in 2014. However, the fastest growing exporters from 2007 to 2014 were Mexico (+11% per year) and China (+7% per year). Spain (-5%), Italy (-4%) and Germany (-2%) demonstrated negative dynamics in this period.

China's top 5 trading partners in 2014 were Japan, the U.S., Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, with a combined 43% share of China's air conditioning machine exports. The share of Japan increased (+6 percentage points), while the share of the U.S. fell back (-6 percentage points).

Do you want to know more about the global air conditioning market? Get the latest trends and insight from our report. It includes a wide range of statistics on

• air conditioning market share
• air conditioning prices
• air conditioning industry
• air conditioning sales
• air conditioning market forecast
• air conditioning price forecast
• key air conditioning producers

Source: World: Air Conditioning Machines - Market Report. Analysis and Forecast to 2020