This is marketing research on the Air Conditioning industry and can include information on the background, market structure, definitions, competitors, trends and developments of air conditioning and is related to other topics such as cooling, heating, ventilation and construction.

Table of Contents

[edit] Background

The term air conditioning most commonly refers to the cooling and dehumidification of indoor air for thermal comfort. In a broader sense, the term can refer to any form of cooling, heating, ventilation or disinfection that modifies the condition of air.

An air conditioner (AC or A/C in North American English, aircon in British and Australian English) is an appliance, system, or mechanism designed to extract heat from an area, typically using a refrigeration cycle but sometimes using evaporation, most commonly for comfort cooling in buildings and transportation vehicles.

The concept of air conditioning is known to have been applied in Ancient Rome, where aqueduct water was circulated through the walls of certain houses to cool them. Similar techniques in medieval Persia involved the use of cisterns and wind towers to cool buildings during the hot season. Modern air conditioning emerged from advances in chemistry during the 19th Century, and the first large-scale electrical air conditioning was invented and used in 1902 by Willis Haviland Carrier.

[edit] Market Structure

In 2001, 249,000 works were employed by the U.S. heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) industry. Roughly 50 percent of these individuals worked for heating and cooling contractors, and roughly 15 percent were self-employed.

In the air conditioning industry, you have a common system of manufacturers, distributors and retailers. In addition to this product structure, you have service technicians. There have been employment cutbacks at the manufacturers in the last few years.

[edit] Industry Definitions

Air conditioning engineers broadly divide air conditioning applications into comfort and process.

• Comfort applications - provide an indoor environment that remains relatively constant in a range preferred by humans despite changes in external weather conditions or in internal heat loads. Comfort air conditioning makes deep plan buildings feasible. Without air conditioning, buildings must be built narrower or with light wells so that inner spaces receive sufficient outdoor air via natural ventilation. Air conditioning also allows buildings to be taller since wind speed increases significantly with altitude making natural ventilation impractical for very tall buildings. Comfort applications for various building types are quite different and may be categorized as:

Low-Rise Residential buildings, including single family houses, duplexes, and small apartment buildings

High-Rise Residential buildings, such as tall dormitories and apartment blocks

Commercial buildings, which are built for commerce, including offices, malls, shopping centers, restaurants, etc.

Institutional buildings, which includes hospitals, governmental, academic, and so on.

Industrial spaces where thermal comfort of workers is desired.</pre>

• Process applications - provide a suitable environment for a process being carried out, regardless of internal heat and humidity loads and external weather conditions. Although often in the comfort range, it is the needs of the process that determine conditions, not human preference. Process applications include:

Hospital operating rooms, in which air is filtered to high levels to reduce infection risk and the humidity controlled to limit patient dehydration.

Clean rooms for the production of integrated circuits, pharmaceuticals, and the like, in which very high levels of air cleanliness and control of temperature and humidity are required for the success of the process.

Facilities for breeding laboratory animals.

[edit] Market Metrics

Global demand in the AC industry will grow 5.1 percent annually through 2010. The Asia/Pacific region will outpace the world average, led by China and India. The other developing countries of Asia and Africa/Mideast will also post strong gains. Cooling equipment will continue to outpace heating equipment. The entire industry is worth about USD $51 Billion.

The industry's revenue in the US for the year 2006 was approximately USD $31.7 Billion. The gross profit was 28.86% at USD $9.16 Billion. There were 871 establishments in the industry that year. The total import/export value for the year 2006 was USD $11,.6 Billion. There were 192 countries that conducted foreign trade with the U.S. in 2006, 10 more than year 2005.

The top trading countries were:

Mexico, USD $2.9 Billion (25.67%)
Canada, USD $2.2 Billion (18.91%)
China, USD $2.0 Billion (17.68%)
Japan, USD $.514 Billion (4.41%)
Brazil, USD $.366 Billion (3.14%)

Their combined total represents approximately 70% of all imports and exports. The total import value for the year 2006 was USD $6 Billion. This represents a 19.9% increase from year 2005. The U.S. had imported industry related merchandises from 80 countries in 2006. The top importing countries were:

Mexico, USD $1.8 Billion (30.02%)
China, USD $1.7 Billion (29.02%)
Canada, USD $.473 Billion (7.89%)
Japan, USD $.401 Billion (6.70%)
Brazil, USD $.279 (4.66%)

Their combined total represents approximately 78% of import from all countries. The total export value for the year 2006 was USD $5.4 Billion. This represents a 7.5% increase from year 2005. The U.S. had exported industry related merchandises to 191 countries in 2006. The top exporting countries were:

Canada, USD $1.7 Billion (31.77%)
Mexico, USD $1.159 Billion (21.38%)
China, USD $.213 Billion (3.94%)
Saudi Arabia, USD $.160 Billion (2.96%)
United Arab Emirates, USD $.147 Billion (2.71%)

Their combined total represents approximately 63% of export to all countries. Adding the import and subtracting the export, the total U.S. consumption value of this industry for the year was USD $32.3 Billion.

[edit] Recent Trends and Developments

Recent researches have focused on reducing the pollution of ozone layer around earth due to air condition equipment. Also, there has been a tremendous labor shortage of skilled laborers to install and service air conditioner units. What a shortage usually leads to is increased labor costs for the air conditioner companies and those costs get passed on to the consumer.

The job market for HVAC workers is projected to grow 37.5 percent between 2002 and 2012

[edit] Industry Players

Comfort Systems USA Emcor Harbin Air Conditioning (China) Siemens (Germany) Aircontrol Technologies Ltd (UK)

[edit] Sources

• US Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Wikipedia
• Google Finance

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