Kitchen air conditioning is a rather unfamiliar concept to many people.

Kitchen and air conditioning, these two words that sound unrelated, why can they be combined together to form a new product?

Is the recent record-breaking sales volume in the kitchen air conditioning market just a marketing stunt by merchants?

Are kitchen air conditioners really useful, or are they just a way to exploit consumers' IQ tax?

What is the use of kitchen air conditioning?

The kitchen has always been the most important part of a new home renovation, because the family's three meals a day need to be cooked in the kitchen. Various kitchen and bathroom manufacturers have also been "crazy" in the fields of range hoods, water purifiers and dishwashers. The endless stream of new products makes it very difficult for consumers to choose.

But we have to say that for so many years, we have neglected a very important need in the kitchen - cooling, which is also the most important function of kitchen air conditioning.

As global warming intensifies, with the temperature starting at 30℃ in summer, cooking in the kitchen in summer has become a test of both physical and mental strength. The hot and humid environment makes cooks sweat profusely and feel uncomfortable after just cooking two or three dishes, and even opening the window is of no help.

Not only that, even in winter, due to the Chinese cooking habit of preferring stir-frying and braising, the heat waves bursting out of the pot when cooking can make the chef sweat on his forehead after cooking a few dishes, and he feels very uncomfortable.

Kitchen air conditioners were born for this purpose. As a new species developed based on air conditioners, the primary mission of kitchen air conditioners is to prepare a comfortable cooking environment for the chef at home. Compared with air coolers with a cooling capacity of only about 500-1000W, the cooling capacity of kitchen air conditioners can reach up to 2000-3000W, and some flagship models can even reach 5000W.

Even on a hot summer day, it is still possible to cool down quickly, allowing the kitchen temperature to return to a comfortable level for the human body in a short period of time, which is far from being achieved by opening windows or turning on fans.

In addition, because the kitchen is an environment that is prone to producing high concentrations of oil smoke, whether it is a fan or a ceiling fan, after long-term use, the surface of the fan blades will be covered with a thick layer of black and yellow grease, which not only looks very disgusting, but also difficult to clean. In contrast, the kitchen air conditioners that have been newly launched in recent years have been specially optimized for this scenario, and special guide grooves are designed for the air outlet to prevent grease from adhering to its surface.

What is more important is that in addition to the oil smoke produced by high temperature, the high-temperature water vapor produced when cooking can also be easily solved by the kitchen air conditioner.

Since we usually store a lot of food that does not need to be refrigerated in the kitchen, once the humidity in the kitchen rises too high, the food will easily deteriorate due to the high humidity, and the walls will also become moldy and black. So at this time, you can use the dehumidification function of the kitchen air conditioner to keep the humidity in the kitchen at 60% or below. This can not only ensure the safety and health of the food, but also prevent mold from growing on the walls and affecting the health of your family.

There is another point that must be mentioned. Since the area of ​​the kitchen is generally not very large, the area inside the kitchen can be said to be very valuable. If you want to install a kitchen refrigeration equipment with good cooling effect, not easy to produce grease stains, and at the same time does not take up the kitchen floor area, then the only option is to install the kitchen air conditioner on the top of the kitchen.

So from the above we can see that kitchen air conditioners are not the IQ tax products that many people say. Refrigeration, no oil stains, convenient dehumidification and small space are its core selling points. It is also the core weapon that can defeat traditional air conditioners and exhaust fans in the kitchen.

But I also believe that there will still be many friends who doubt whether kitchen air conditioners are really as good as mentioned above, and what the real market performance is. So next, let’s talk about the industry development status of kitchen air conditioners.

Kitchen air conditioning has gradually been accepted by more and more people

Although we mentioned it at the beginning, for many people, kitchen air conditioners are a very unfamiliar category, which is completely different from the air conditioners we have known before.

However, if we study the history of kitchen air conditioners in detail, we will find that the history of kitchen air conditioners is much longer than we thought. It has been 14 years since a domestic manufacturer produced the first kitchen air conditioner in 2009. These 14 years have been 14 years of rapid economic development in China, and also 14 years of continuous improvement and optimization of the kitchen air conditioner category.

From the initial inconvenience of installation and easy accumulation of oil and dirt, to the current variety of post-installation methods, and the enhancement of the three aspects of high temperature, high oil and high humidity for Chinese cooking scenes, it can be said that in 2023, kitchen air conditioners have become a mature category.

According to the data in the "White Paper on the Development of China's Kitchen Refrigeration Industry in 2023-2024" jointly released by GFK China and Hyundai Home Appliances, since 2022, the sales volume of China's kitchen air-conditioning market has repeatedly set new highs, reaching 87,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 17.8%. In the context of the overall economic environment that has not yet fully recovered, this can be said to be a miracle in the home appliance industry.

At the same time, according to the sales statistics of Industry Online, the overall sales volume of domestic kitchen air conditioners in the first quarter of 2023 was 16,600 units. Combined with the data that the sales volume of kitchen air conditioners in Suning.com channel in the first week of July 2023 increased by 216% year-on-year compared with 2022, the sales volume of kitchen air conditioners in August and September, when the high temperature has not yet subsided, will only be higher.

From these data, it is clear that China's kitchen air-conditioning market is in a period of rapid growth and expansion. More and more consumers are willing to invest money in improving the kitchen environment. In the past 14 years, this has been an unimaginable event for practitioners.

Fortunately, as the kitchen air conditioning category matures, this grand occasion will continue for a long time.

After all, according to the "2023 China Home Decoration Industry New Trend Insight Report" previously released by iResearch Consulting, with the economic recovery, the scale of China's home decoration market continues to expand. The market size in 2022 was 304.29 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 327.72 billion yuan this year, and it is expected to reach 378.02 billion yuan in 2025.

Among them, the consumer group aged 20-40 has become the core force driving the growth of the home improvement market, and this is also the main consumer group in the kitchen air-conditioning market in recent years. The overlap between them will inevitably make the kitchen air-conditioning industry maintain a growth rate higher than the current growth level in at least the next five years.

Kitchen air conditioners will also become the second key category in China's air conditioning industry after central air conditioners to drive the industry to experience explosive growth again.

Conclusion

In general, although it has been more than ten years since the invention of kitchen air conditioners, due to many reasons such as its own technology and consumer consumption tendencies, it has not yet achieved the goal of popularizing it in every family's kitchen, and has even been dubbed a "IQ tax."

However, as the kitchen air-conditioning category has now fully matured, the consumer group has gradually been replaced by young consumers who care more about the quality of life. Therefore, it is believed that in the next three years, the kitchen air-conditioning industry will usher in a full-scale outbreak, and in the next five years it will become the new "standard configuration" for kitchens in newly renovated houses.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.