India now shops by season: ACs for summer, air purifiers for winter
The seasonal nature of air purifier and air-conditioner sales poses challenges for marketers. Blue Star emphasizes the need for strategic communication to address misconceptions about indoor air quality and to target diverse consumer segments.
Mumbai: If searing heat is an annual feature of the Indian summer, air pollution is fast settling into a permanent fixture of winter. For companies that sell both air-conditioners (ACs) and air purifiers, sales and marketing now fall into two neatly-distinct seasons—summer for ACs and winter for air purifiers, a much smaller category. Given this sharp seasonality, how do marketing heads manage their business when demand peaks so unevenly through the year? Girish Hingorani, vice-president of marketing at Blue Star, tells Mint it is all about planning the year carefully and efficiently. Edited excerpts:
Much like air conditioners, air purifiers seem to be a seasonal business. But with more air pollution for longer periods, is that changing?
We find air purifiers to be a 15-20 day market, when there is smog and high AQI (air quality index) concerns, and then things get better. There are a lot of media reports during this period, but once the government takes action and the AQI gets better, then come January, people forget about this.
However, people have this perception that outside air is nasty and that indoor air is better. So, people have this perception that they need more air purification outdoors. But they believe that at home they are safe and secure, and they don’t need an air purifier. This is a myth among a lot of affluent consumers as well, especially in high AQI markets. India’s air purifier market is just ₹200-300 crore as compared to the air conditioners, which is some ₹20,000-30,000 crore. Compare this to markets like Korea and China, where air purifier penetration is above 40%.
But air purifiers do sell a lot, especially in North India…
I think there is a lot of ignorance on the part of customers on air purification. They believe indoor air quality even during this period is better and that they are safe at home. In Delhi, for example, students can attend school and colleges online during high-pollution days. Parents tend to prefer that too, thinking that their homes are safe. But the indoor air quality can be much worse than outside. During the winters, we don’t even open the windows because of the cold weather. So, the air inside becomes far more hazardous to health.
One has to really invest a lot in communications and bust this myth about air purification. So, it has reached this level that those homes that have an air purifier continue to upgrade and replace. But homes new to air purification have still not got into [the category]. This is our challenge. As a result, we have not had much change in the size of this category.
How different are these seasonal dynamics for sales and marketing in air-conditioners?
This is our biggest category, and it is a business growing rather aggressively. You rarely see a business that is growing at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 15-20%. Air-conditioners are one such category. So, for retailers, this has become an important product in their portfolio. ACs have a higher average selling price and there is high demand. But here too, the retailers’ biggest concern is that it is a seasonal market. This market is set to grow to $13 billion in the next 4-5 years. The penetration of ACs is still quite low, given that we are a tropical country with very harsh summers. You can also buy multiple ACs, compared to buying only one washing machine, refrigerator, and microwave for a household. You can buy one AC for each room in a house. Once a customer is used to an AC in one room, they want it in every room.
ACs have always been an aspirational product in India, although now with the cut in GST rates, there is a push towards affordability. How has marketing strategy for ACs evolved in the long term?
There are two distinct cohorts we are dealing with. The first is the affluent buyer who already has an AC, and is buying additional ACs for their rooms or replacing them. Then there is the larger cohort of first-time buyers who could not afford an AC, but are now moving up the ladder and are able to put money together for an AC. The communication to both these cohorts has to be very different. A lot of the brands so far have been appealing to this discerning buyer, but if you position your ACs as lifestyle products, you might lose out on that first-time buyer looking to upgrade from an air-cooler to an AC.
What are some triggers that push the first-time AC buyer to finally make a purchase?
Apart from the heat, there are a lot of social triggers. If people have not bought an AC so far, they have managed heat so far. But they may want to invest in an AC because it is a status symbol, and puts you somewhere on the social ladder.
So as a brand, we have changed our strategy. Our focus also used to be the discerning buyer. But in tier-3, 4, and 5 markets, we have campaigns such as ‘Garmi Ki Chhutti’ [summer holidays] where we have personified the summer heat where switching on the AC “freezes" the heat. It helps communicate to the first-time buyer the basic, functional reason to buy an AC. Going forward, any brand will need to have two sets of communication, although with mass media it tends to get difficult.
Purchase decisions for ACs are very seasonal too, just as the summer heat kicks in. What is the right way to plan marketing budgets for the entire year?
All air-conditioners advertise in the 8-12 weeks of summer and not throughout the year. This summer (of 2025) has not gone well for most AC companies; all of them are staring at a 10-15% decline in sales over last year, only because it didn’t become hot enough. There were unseasonal rains, too. This is a big problem for marketers. I have to skew all of my monies for the summer season and there is a lot of clutter at that time. That is also the time of the IPL (Indian Premier League cricket tournament), the biggest TV and digital property. Most AC brands like us are tempted to go into the IPL because it helps us reach our target audience quite effectively, if not efficiently. But once you do that, you don’t have much budget left for the rest of the year. The rest of the year then becomes sustenance, digital-focused marketing with no aggressive campaigns.
But because of this, we become a three-month brand, and then come summer, all of us end up joining the bandwagon trying to communicate the features of our ACs. The clutter is very high during that period. So in digital, we are geared towards campaigns for the affluent customer during the rest of the year.
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