Promising market of Air Purifiers in tier II & III cities of India: Report

With the continuously intensifying pollution, especially in the tier II and III cities of India like Gwalior, Allahabad, Patna and Raipur among others, the quality of air people inhale is depleting day-by-day.

According to the recent report for 2016 released by WHO, India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, which have far poorer air quality monitoring systems, are already among the global cities with the highest levels of particulate matter (PM).

Gwalior, among the top five cities globally in terms of PM 2.5 levels, recorded an annual average of 176 micrograms per cubic metre (ug/m3) and Allahabad 170. The 20 global cities with the highest PM 2.5 levels included Patna and Raipur with 149 and 144 ug/m3, respectively.

Considerably, the people across the nation spend over 90 per cent of their time indoors. Researchers believe that the indoor air much polluted in comparison with is polluted air outside.

Thus, business of Air Purifiers have adequate avenue of opportunities in the small towns of the country.

Significantly, as per the India Air Purifier Market Forecast & Opportunities 2018, the demand for air purifiers is mostly generated from the commercial sector. Moreover, the demand from residential sector is also expected to grow due to the increase in health concerns across India.

What’s air purifier?

It is a portable machine that removes bacteria, virus and particulate matter, which may affect human body with breathing disorders or diseases, if could be inhaled on a daily basis. Significantly, the amount of power a ceiling fan uses, an air purifier strips the air of major pollutants including dust, pollen, mould, dander and tobacco smoke using various filtration techniques. Usually spotted at hospitals and hotels to keep a tab over indoor air pollution and provide healthy breathing to the patients and clients.

Commenting on the same, Manish Sharma, Managing Director, Panasonic India and South Asia, said, “The Air Purifiers market in the country is evolving and organized. The growing awareness among people about the surging pollution levels and the risk it causes to their health has encouraged them to invest in air purifiers. This has increased the demand for air purifiers in India, though at a slow rate.”

Growing demand in cities:

With the growing awareness and rising indoor pollution among big cities, where traffic, fuel, factory discharge and various other factors are contributing in the overall pollution level, the demand for air purifier is high. Significantly, the market experts have observed good demand coming from the metros and some big cities, where level of pollution is high.

“The demand of Air Purifiers has been growing at more than 100 per cent month-on-month owing to the worsening air quality in India. This has been observed specifically in Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai among many other cities. Our new range of air purifiers are currently available in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Guwahati and many other smaller cities and towns. It can also be purchased online from the Eureka Forbes website,” said Marzin Shroff, CEO- Direct Sales and Senior VP, Marketing, Eureka Forbes.

Likewise, Sharma shared, “For Panasonic the key market is Delhi NCR due to the soaring levels of air pollution in the city.While the demand is mostly from metro cities, we have also seen traction from tier II towns where customers are purchasing our product through our online store, www.mypstore.in.”

Meanwhile, Shuvendu Mazumdar, Product Head, SHARP Plasmacluster Air Purifier Business, India, said, “We started our test marketing with Kanpur, Ludhiana & Delhi which are among the most polluted of all. The user profile an Air Purifier does not depend on whether he is in a metro or a tier II or III city, it depends largely on his/ her realization of Air Purifier as prevention to the problems of respiratory diseases. Our sales of course in Delhi is the highest followed by Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad, but we have been doing quite well in non metro cities like Kochi, Vizag, Coimbatore, Chandigarh etc.”

Current market position:

Darling of hospitals and hotels, air purifiers market opened a big competition among leading companies like Eureka Forbes, Kent RO, OSIM International, Sharp India, Panasonic and new entrant Phillips, which has raised the bar of innovation in the air purifier market by launching range of innovative, high-quality products.

Commenting on the present market size of air purifiers, Sharma said, “The market has grown remarkably from FY’2010 to FY’2014 at a CAGR of 33.4 per cent. Currently, the size of organised market for air purifiers above the price range of Rs10,000 is 12500 units. Panasonic has a market share of 12 per cent.”

However, Shroff said, “It is difficult to estimate the exact market size of this category. The reason is that, more than 1/2 the market, in our opinion, is captured by various traders and small fragmented players. Media and various other players have quoted numbers as small as 20 to 200 Crores. However, in our estimates it will be between 70 to 80 Crores and the break-up of the same is as follows; Domestic Segment is estimated to be Rs 30 Crores while, Institutional Segment is at Rs45 Crores.”

Opportunities & Challenges:

With growing demand and awareness among consumers, the air purifiers market has witnessed good growth, which opened huge opportunities and challenges in the market.

“Opportunities are in Hotels, Restaurants, Bars, Lounges, Hospitals, Clinics, Individual homes, Offices, Homes having infants, people with respiratory disorders and allergies. Challenges are dispersal of knowledge of the benefits of the product,” said Munish Bhalla, CEO, OSIM India.

Meanwhile, highlighting the challenges in the air purifier market, Sharma noted, “Strengthening of the weak distribution channels, creating awareness, intensive marketing and increasing penetration into the tier I and II markets, which are some of the few major challenges, will affect the positive growth of this industry in the future.”

Technical differentiation:

Technical advancement is another major growth driver in the air purifier market. Research and innovation of technology has a great effect on the demand of air purifiers in the market. Cost effective technologies are making it possible for the larger part of the society to afford the product.

Highlighting the technical advancement of its newly introduced air purifiers, Jayati Singh Chakraborti, Business Head - Air, Philips India said, “As a health and well-being company, we offer solutions that let you control the air you breathe and ensure your family breathes in healthier air. The Philips Air purifiers come with patented Vitashield IPS technology with multi-level filtration that can remove upto 0.02 microns pollutants keeping the air 99.97 per cent allergen free.”

Voicing the same, Sharma said the severity of air pollution has made headlines in the media and I believe that this has helped create awareness around the availability of products that can help fight the problem.

“The Panasonic air purifiers are unique in nature because of its NANOE technology which works in sync with the composite filter to reduce 99.94 per cent PM 2.5 particles within 60 minutes. Apart from this, the Panasonic Air Purifiers also have front suction which is a more efficient way of functioning,” noted Panasonic India MD.

Similarly, Bhalla said, “Our Air Purifier has multi stage purification, it has a deodoriser to remove stale odours, it dispels negative ions in the ambient air which makes it cleaner and our purifier also has an ultra violet cathode tube which neutralises various viruses and bacteria.”

Conclusion

Significantly, the outdoor air pollution has become the fifth largest killer in India after high blood pressure, indoor air pollution, tobacco smoking, and poor nutrition, says a new set of findings of the Global Burden of Disease report.

“The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) report is a world-wide initiative involving the World Health Organisation, which tracks deaths and illnesses from all causes across the world every 10 years,” added Shroff.

He further said, “The new findings were released by Aaron Cohen, Principal Epidemiologist of the Health Effects Institute and Co-Chairman of the GBD Ambient Air Pollution Expert Group, says that in 2010, about 620,000 premature deaths occurred in India from air pollution-related diseases. GBD has ranked air pollution as one of the top 10 killers in the world, and the sixth most dangerous killer in South Asia. In fact, particulate air pollution is now just three places behind indoor air pollution, which is the second highest killer in India.”