Major home appliance companies expect Thailand's air conditioner industry to resume growth this year, boosted by a spate of positive factors including hotter weather, an improving economy and recovering consumption.
Saowanee Sirariyakul, business director at Thai Samsung Electronics, said the company is quite upbeat about a recovery in spending on air conditioner products this summer and is set to launch 36 new home appliance models to capitalise on the anticipated market recovery.
Of the new offerings, 17 are inverter air conditioner models for which demand is expected to continue growing strongly this year.
Last year it launched only two inverter models.
Samsung predicted the air conditioner market would grow 5% this year from 1.43 million units last year, a first-ever contraction, down 10%, with a value of 20 billion baht.
The company attributed last year's contraction to the poor economy, cool weather and relatively high household debt.
Two players, Panasonic and Mitsubishi, had even more positive outlooks, forecasting 10% market growth this year.
They cited the hotter weather in January year-on-year as one factor, while the penetration rate of air conditioners in Thailand is only 30%, compared with that of other home appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines, which is 90%.
The two companies also said the overall economy will show strong growth this year.
Yasushi Moriyama, managing director of Mitsubishi Electric Kang Yong Wattana, the distributor of Mitsubishi electrical appliance in Thailand, said that he is also confident that the air-conditioner market will manage to resume growth this year because of robust exports, agricultural product prices and tourism.
"These factors will build up the country's overall economic environment and spending this year," said Mr Moriyama. "But the competition is expected to heat up this year and we're ready to maintain our leadership in the overall air-conditioner market, with about 30% market share."
In 2018, Mr Moriyama said the company also vows to become the market leader in Thailand's converter air-conditioner segment.
Inverter air conditioners represent 30-40% of the overall air-conditioner market in Thailand. According to Panasonic AP Sales Thailand Co Ltd, the distributor of Panasonic home appliances, 1,430,000 air conditioner units were sold in 2017. That number is expected to increase to 1,570,000 units this year.
Mitsubishi plans to spend 1.04 billion baht on its marketing activities to promote its products.
The company plans to increase sales by 15% to 14.5 billion baht in its fiscal 2018 ending March 31, 2019.
Although Thailand's electrical home appliance market experienced no growth in 2017, sales of Panasonic electrical home appliances hit 12.6 billion baht last fiscal year, up 5% year-on-year, because of rising sales in the company's premium categories.
Of that total, air conditioners contributed 42% of the company's sales, with refrigerators making up 19%, washing machines 15% and other items the rest.