In early 2021, consumers began to pay more attention to indoor air quality as a result of the resurgence of the New Coronavirus virus in India and a significant increase in national health awareness.Air purifiers and fresh air products, as a solution to air purification, became hot topics and were frequently searched during the epidemic.Over the past few years, the air purifier and fresh-air industries, which caused a market boom in China due to frequent smoggy days, have cooled as air quality improves.Will the heat generated by the epidemic bring the air purification industry a third blowout?How should enterprises seize the opportunity and walk out of the cold winter of the industry?
Virus Activation Market
Since 2018, the air purification industry has ushered in an inflection point.Among them, the air purifier industry has entered a stage of deep adjustment, the market size has declined successively, and the enterprise vitality is no longer.According to AVC, sales of air purifiers in the online market increased by 0.78% year on year in 2019, while sales in the offline market plummeted by 42.36% year on year.Under the impact of the average price decline, air purifier sales fell more than sales volume.The development of fresh air industry is relatively stable, but the growth rate has narrowed. It is more used as a supporting product of central air conditioning, and mainly used in commercial places.According to Deng Gaofeng, director of the Low Carbon Building Research Center at the China Academy of Building Sciences, China sold 1.46 million units of fresh air systems in 2019, up 39 percent year on year.
Before the outbreak of the epidemic, the air purifier industry was seeking "self-help" by diversifying product functions, in order to get rid of the label of "relying on the weather to eat", but in the short term has not been effective;The development of fresh air industry is largely dependent on local real estate fine decoration policies. End consumers' understanding of fresh air products and purchase intention are always low, and it is difficult to make a breakthrough in the retail market.
At the beginning of 2020, the sudden COVID-19 epidemic caused consumers to pay attention to indoor air issues.A.O. Smith, Lake, Haier, Midea, Gree, Panasonic, Yadu, Xiaomi, Westinghouse, Broad, Dream Maker, Braun, Zhejiang Tyre and other brands donated a number of air purifiers and fresh air systems to Wuhan Huo Shen Shan Hospital, Thor Shen Shan Hospital and Fang Cabin Hospital.Air purifiers and fresh air equipment can be seen in many hospital wards. With the publicity of manufacturers and businesses during the epidemic, the discussion of air purifiers and fresh air systems began to soar. The air purification industry, which had been silent for two years, was "lively" again.
During the epidemic, the market for air purifiers soared as consumers took to it.Sales of air purifiers in the fourth and fifth weeks of 2020 rose 29.1% and 120.8% year-on-year, according to AVC.While the fresh air system belongs to the category that needs to be installed, although the attention is surging, it has not yet been reflected in the sales.
Play a preventive effect, the new national standard will join in addition to the virus ability
At the beginning of 2020, novel coronavirus outbreak, to air purification industry, it may be said that there is an opportunity in the crisis -- more and more consumers are aware, air purification equipment is not only to eliminate haze god, still can filter and purify a variety of air pollutants including bacteria, virus.
There are three main ways of novel coronavirus transmission, namely, direct transmission, aerosol transmission and contact transmission.Aerosol transmission is one of the transmission routes of the virus, droplets mixed in the air, the formation of aerosols, resulting in human inhalation after infection.Aerosol belongs to the solid particles in the air. Purifying the suspended solid pollutants in the air is one of the main functions of air purifier and fresh air system.As a result, isolation wards in many hospitals are equipped with an air purifier or a fresh air system in addition to the basic facilities.
Beijing 352 environmental protection technology limited company technical director Lu Yi said, because have a large number of independent large volume of negative pressure fresh air system of the hospital ward is not much, the removal of virus effect is significantly better than ultraviolet disinfection machine and other non-filter form of disinfection products of the air purifier, very suitable for dealing with indoor environmental pollution.
Currently, consumers are concerned about whether air purification equipment can filter out viruses.Feng Luzhao, a researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said air purifiers do not necessarily filter out the virus.The main reason for "not necessarily" is that there is no requirement to kill viruses or other pathogenic microorganisms in the product standards of air purifiers.
Whether the air purifier is effective in purifying the virus depends on the particle size of the virus and the filter element level used in the air purifier."Viruses come in sizes, and unlike gaseous pollutants, viruses are particulate matter."According to IQAIR, the particle size of common epidemic viruses ranges from 0.02 to 0.4 microns, and that of SARS virus ranges from 0.06 to 0.22 microns. According to the data from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the particle size of COVID-19 virus is 0.06 to 0.14 microns."The internationally recognized HEPA filter H12 and H13 two levels require the filtration efficiency of particles of 0.3 microns to reach more than 99.5% and 99.97%, respectively. The air purifier using this level of filter element has a certain auxiliary filtering effect for dealing with common epidemic viruses.Therefore, air purification products with H13 or higher filter elements, such as IQAIR's HealthPro series and ATEM series, are performing well in the market."IQAIR concerned person in charge said.
Some industry insiders pointed out that many viruses will be attached to the air particle pollutants, the diameter is greater than 0.3 micron, therefore, the purification efficiency of the air purification equipment, in the epidemic will play a very effective preventive role.
In view of the current air purifier standard without virus removal requirements, China household appliances research institute deputy chief engineer Lu Jianguo said, the current standard only bacteria removal requirements, but the national standard GB/T 18801-2015 "air purifier" is being revised, will remove the virus ability included in it.
In addition, Feng suggested that families ventilate their rooms daily, either through natural ventilation or mechanical ventilation.The working principle of the fresh air system is to filter the outdoor air into the room, while the indoor polluted air is pressed out of the room.However, there are industry insiders, to the sealing of the vast majority of families in China, to make the house produce positive pressure, the new air system needs a lot of air volume, not only the house temperature will be reduced, but also the noise will be very big.Therefore, in his opinion, to achieve the best purification effect, the combination of "air purifier + fresh air system" is the best solution.
Air purifiers are being redefined
As early as the SARS period, many hospitals began to use air purifiers, but the product did not become popular in the Chinese market.In 2014, with the haze sweeping over, the air purification market ushered in the outbreak.For a while, numerous brands poured in, new products emerged in endlessly.So far, in China, "haze removal" has become a synonym for air purification products, but also foreshadowing the industry in 2018 encountered cold.Chen Huaxia said that in the past few years, air purification is an industry developed under the smog economy, and consumers have some misconceptions about it, thinking that only the smog genius needs to use it, not the rest of the time.
It is this kind of cognitive misunderstanding that leads to the cold in the air purification industry after the air quality improves.Under the epidemic, air purifiers have been redefined again.Consumers are beginning to realize that air purifiers are not only magic tools for removing haze and formaldehyde, but also health appliances that can purify a large number of air pollution.Fresh air system is also more end consumer attention.
The outbreak may allow consumers to have a more comprehensive understanding of the air purification industry.Xiao Jianwei, president of Zhejiang Dreammaker Import and Export Co., Ltd., pointed out that the outbreak of the epidemic has promoted the popularity of consumer terms for ventilation, fresh air system, aerosol and other industries, and has a good boost effect on the air purification industry.
There is no doubt that in the short term, in addition to the attention of virus products will increase significantly, consumers on the air purification products to filter ultra-fine particulate matter degree has also improved, the cognitive function of its no longer stay in the "in addition to haze".However, talking about the air purification product virus filtering ability, IQAIR said that the relevant person in charge, the current enterprise propaganda is multifarious, the market is chaotic, it is easy to mislead consumers."Therefore, we will strengthen consumer education to help people identify and choose products that are truly reliable and effective."
Avoid going back to the old ways. Self-improvement is the way forward
With the promotion of attention again, China's air purification market will therefore usher in a second blowout?Or will it repeat its previous development trajectory, only turning the "haze economy" into a "virus economy" and losing its way again after a brief period of vitality?In this regard, a number of interviewees agreed to answer: "the air purification market scale will be affected by the epidemic will increase, but it is not sure whether this improvement can be maintained for a long time and how long it will last."
An insider said that the penetration rate of air purification products in China is very low, and the development space is broad. However, product quality and performance are the fundamental driving force for the development of the industry.For mainstream brands, the quality and performance of air purification products are better, but there are many specialized in the Internet sales of small brands, product quality and performance are worrying.Especially as the virus activates the market demand, there will be a large number of "speculators" to enter again, with low price of inferior goods to seize the market, so that the emergence of the user trust crisis of the air purification industry to sink into a quagmire.
At the same time, in the current epidemic of viruses, enterprises will focus on the product publicity on filtering viruses, which is exactly the same as the focus on "in addition to haze" publicity.
At the same time, in the current epidemic of viruses, enterprises will focus on the product publicity on filtering viruses, which is exactly the same as the focus on "in addition to haze" publicity.Therefore, in the special period, it is particularly important to choose the right way of publicity and market education."We don't want users to buy air purifiers just because they are in a temporary panic," Lu said. "We don't want them to be covered when the epidemic is over. It's not positive for users and the industry.Air cleaning products don't just filter out viruses, which are just one of the myriad pollutants in the air.In addition to viruses and PM2.5, we want to let consumers know that air purification products can also purify lampblack, cigarette particles, suspended bacteria, allergens, sudden outbreaks of peculiar smell, pet dander, mites and mite metabolites, pollen, VOC, formaldehyde, ozone, ammonia, etc."
As an emergency, the epidemic can not promote all enterprises to usher in great development, and air purification enterprises want to avoid going down the old road, self-improvement is very important."Only companies that keep innovating can achieve long-term development after the epidemic is over."Chen Huaxia said that in the future, Lake electrical air purifier will continue to improve the performance of the product at the same time, will also be in addition to odor and other aspects of efforts, and make the quantitative indicators more intuitive.He pointed out that only starting from the needs of users, continuous innovation, is the foothold of the enterprise, and Lake Electric is always committed to the pursuit of perfection in innovation enterprises.
To seize the opportunities brought by the epidemic, enterprises need to do a good job in products, experiences and services."Making competitive products is the foundation of development.We suggest that air purification enterprises to product as the fundamental, to find their own market positioning."Lu Yi also said, obviously, in the performance chase has been near the end of now, who can seize the opportunity from the product experience, who can get more customers.