The summer air conditioner sales battle should come to an end in September and October. But not long ago, domestic giants like Midea, Haier and Gree successively held new product launch conferences or distributor meetings, and air conditioner exhibition stands in supermarkets were all re-decorated. Inverter air conditioner, with energy saving and consumption reduction as its selling points, turns to be the leading actor of market.
A main reason that leads to such a change is the formal implementation of inverter air conditioner energy efficiency national criteria. From then on, inverter air conditioner began to have its own "energy saving identity card", and functions such as rated energy efficiency grade, refrigeration seasonal energy consumption efficiency and refrigeration seasonal electricity consumption could be clear at a glance for consumers.
Inverter air conditioner market is showing a strong increase trend. According to data from Beijing Zhongyikang Times Market Research Co., Ltd.(a market research institution) that from January to June of this year, sales volume of inverter air conditioner was increased by 8.48 percent in comparison with the same period of last year, the retail sales grew by 21.07 percent year on year. It has taken up 10 percent of the total market share. Inverter air conditioner also has a good performance in export market. Yu Zhipu, Senior Business Executive of China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electric Products, introduced that the export volume of China's invert air conditioner is growing at a two-digit rate, particularly, the export to Japan could even reach 8.3 million sets per year.
Energy saving expands wider space
Hitachi built the first DC-type invert air conditioner in the world as early as 1983. In late 1980s, inverter air conditioner entered China market, but it was not welcomed by the market because of the high price. What makes domestic air conditioner manufacturers put force in inverter air conditioner market? Will inverter air conditioner replace the mainstream station of traditional constant frequency air conditioner?
"Air conditioner is a lavish consumer of residential electricity, therefore the progress of energy saving and consumption reduction is all along the emphasis of national industrial policy. Air conditioner enterprises must face such a big trend, which brings vitality to inverter air conditioner", said Wu Wenxin, Deputy President of Domestic Division of Midea.
Energy efficiency ratio means the ratio of refrigeration energy consumption and input power; it could reflect the water saving capacity of air conditioners. In 2004, the State formulated The Minimum Allowable Values of the Energy Efficiency and Energy Efficiency Grades for Room Air Conditioners standard, according to which air conditioners are classified into five grades, and constant-frequency air conditioners with energy efficiency ratio lower than 2.6 are prohibited to sell. To the March of next year, constant-frequency air conditioners will be required more strict energy consumption, only conditioners with energy efficiency ratio higher than 3.2 (equivalent to grade two in the past) could be allowed to enter the market. This is just the "grade five up to grade two" of air conditioner industry.
After "grade five up to grade two", the original price difference between inverter and constant-frequency air conditioner will be obviously diminished. Manufacturers carried out more strict cost control in order to promote inverter air conditioner sales. Wu Wenxin introduced that the unit price of Midea's new product is lower than RMB3000 yuan, being slightly different from the price of grade-2 constant-frequency air conditioner. The "price factor" that brought the biggest pressure to inverter air conditioner no longer exists.
The increasing rationality of consumers also lays a foundation for the hot sales of inverter air conditioner. In Gome's Shuangjing store in Beijing, Ms. Wang has just bought a set of inverter air conditioner although she doesn't know the policy change of "grade five up to grade two". Ms. Wang said that according to her calculation, the use of inverter air conditioner with energy saving ratio at 30 percent could reduce at least RMB250 yuan electricity charge every year compared with constant frequency air conditioner of the same horse power. "We buy an air conditioner for years' use; I have to know the account clearly". At the same time, more and more consumers begin to concern such advantages of inverter air conditioners like cooling and heating speed and low-noise.
Technology maturity pushes the development
Can inverter air conditioner save energy as good as the advertisement? Once in a time, inverter products, which were made by control technologies that were immature or phasing out such as AC and square wave, were sold in the market with price close to constant frequency air conditioners. They affected consumers' passion to accept inverter air conditioner. But now, for one thing, consumers could see at a glance the "weight" of inverter air conditioner because of the implementation of energy efficiency national standard; for another, manufacturers begin to push the development of the industry successively by means of more mature and more advanced technology.
Words like "280 degree sine wave technology" are often seen on new inverter air conditioners of Gree, Midea and Hisense. In comparison with 120 degree square wave technology, sine wave could make DC-type inverter compressor more stable; with low-noise, small vibration and high energy efficiency, sine wave could also save more than 10 percent energy than square wave technology.
Domestic air conditioner enterprises are up front in the application of sine wave technology than foreign enterprises. Lots of foreign enterprises still concentrate their selling points on new refrigerant media and DC technology, and they haven't started the application of sine wave technologies yet. They didn't launch formally new DC-type inverter products applied sine wave technology until in the Milan Refrigeration Exhibition this year. The development of sine wave technology benefits mainly from domestic enterprises' promotion and development of DC-type inverter air conditioners, and it is also the biggest breakthrough of domestic enterprises on inverter technologies.
As domestic giants like Gree, Aux, Haier, Chigo, and Chunlan successively make great efforts on inverter air conditioners, insiders analyze that inverter sir conditioner will probably become the leading actor of air conditioner market, and the issuance of new energy efficiency standard will initiate a new round of reshuffle of air conditioner industry.
