Trends and Figures: Global air-conditioning market

The new BSRIA review of the world air-conditioning (AC) market in 2007 shows a significant increase, since global AC sales were valued at USD 62 billion as compared to USD 55 billion in 2006. Globally, Asia Pacific is the largest regional market (USD 28 billion), followed by America (USD 15 billion) and Europe (USD 15 billion). The Middle Eastern, African and Indian market was valued at USD 5 billion. China and the US were almost equal in market value in 2007 (USD 12 billion) but China is expected to become the world's largest market in 2008 thanks to a faster growing. The most rapidly growing market in 2007 was Ukraine (+45% compared with 2006), followed by Greece (+42%), Russia (+41%), Indonesia (+35%) and Spain (+33%). In terms of products, VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow) has continued to be the best performing segment, and is expected to grow by around 15% in value during 2006-2011. Minisplit units of over 5 kW will also show strong growth of above 10% during the same period. Centrifugal chillers are expected to grow slightly better than other chiller types, reflecting strong growth in large construction projects, mostly in the Middle East, Brazil, Russia, China and India. Another study from JARN estimates that China is now the largest AC manufacturing base as well as the biggest AC market in the world in terms of number of units with a market size of 24.5 million units in 2007 (+15% compared to 2006), followed by the US at 16.9 million (-1%), Europe at 8.6 million and Japan at 8.0 million.