KARACHI: Split air conditioner sales have been brisk in April as buyers are fearing intense heatwave this summer.
Another reason prompting buyers to lift cooling machines earlier during the current year is to avoid the price hike in case the demand surpasses the supply like last year particularly before Ramazan starting in the first week of June.
Last year, over 1,200 Karachiites lost their lives to heatwave which was exacerbated by power failures and lack of ventilation in residential highrises in congested areas.
Anticipating brisk sales as the mercury level rises, many air conditioner manufacturers have boosted their production to match the expected demand.
A dealer near Hashoo Centre said the market started gaining buyers from the second week of March. The current month is also going quite strong in terms of sales as compared to the same period last year when sales were relatively slow, he added.
Last year buyers paid an additional Rs2,000-10,000 per unit to shopkeepers when the heatwave became unbearable and the market suffered a supply gap. Manufacturers were not expecting an unprecedented demand last year and kept their production normal at 14,300 units in January 2015 and 11,339 units in February 2015.
They pushed up production in March to 32,633 units, rising to 42,667 units in April, 49,525 units in May, 78,950 units in June and 38,950 units in July.
However, rising production failed to provide any relief to consumers.
To make matters worse, shopkeepers indulged in black marketing by removing ACs from the market and selling them at much higher rates. The situation was so bad that shopkeepers were able to sell defected units at premium price.
This year manufacturers are impatient to cash in on the summer demand in coming months.
AC production climbed to 23,150 units in February 2016 as compared to 10,520 units in January 2016, figures of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (FBS) showed.
Production in July-Feb 2015-16 rose to 155,910 units as compared to 121,758 units in same period last fiscal.
“We have increased our production capacity by 25-30 per cent in Jan-March 2016 as compared to the same period last year to cope with an unexpected demand during May-July mainly,” a Lahore-based split AC manufacturer told News.
He said sales in the current month have been much better than April 2015 as people have started lifting ACs much earlier than the peak buying season.
Total annual market of ACs is 600,000-650,000 units in which imported machines hold 5-10pc market share. More than 60pc ACs are sold in the densely populated Punjab.
INVERTERS TAKING OVER: The manufacturer said inverter ACs are gradually taking over regular ACs as they offer energy savings of up to 60pc.
He claimed prices of inverter ACs have come down this year due to stiff competition among local and imported machines.
He said his company reduced the price of one-tonne inverter ACs to Rs56,500 from Rs59,900, followed by Rs74,900 from Rs84,000 of 1.5 tonnes and Rs98,000 from Rs105,000 in two tonne.
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