China saw the early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the air conditioning market. However, the market has been in recovery since the second quarter of 2020, driven by measures to weather the pandemic such as controlling the epidemic, promoting consumption and infrastructure construction.
China’s economy rebounded quickly in 2020 due to a well-controlled pandemic, which meant that the economy still saw modest growth despite a challenging year.
The real estate market recovered quickly, even though restriction policies for price and purchase continued in 2020. National investment in real estate development, the sales floor space, and sales value of commercial property all increased in 2020, although at a modest level compared to 2019.
The Chinese air conditioning market has continued to see good growth in recent years, but it has been slowing and the impact of COVID-19 has meant that the overall AC market dropped in 2020, with the PAC market volume decreasing notably, and the CPAC too – though to a lesser extent. The self‐contained unit, single-split, multi-split, large packaged and chiller markets all dropped, whilst only the VRF market managed to maintain modest growth.