Companies like Xiaomi, Eureka Forbes, Blue Air, Panasonic India, Honeywell and Sharp said they have witnessed multi-fold jump in demand for air purifiers in the last couple of days.
Doctors and experts however said there is no much clinical data to prove efficacy of purifiers and masks against such high level of pollution.
AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, who is also a renowned pulmonologist, said that N95 masks and air purifiers, whose sales have increased in the last few days, may not provide full-time protection and stressed on implementation of long- term measures to tackle the crisis.
“Mi Air Purifier 2 has disrupted the air purifier category in India, and it has seen an 8x increase in sales in the last 24 hours across mi.com and online partners Flipkart and Amazon,” a Xiaomi spokesperson told PTI.
Similarly, a Blueair spokesperson said, “With the air quality deteriorating and air pollution being a constant talking point, in last 2-3 days the demand and Blueair sales per day have almost gone up 50 times to last week.”
He further said that November expectations are three times of last month and there is a 100 per cent growth over the last year.
Air purifiers from different brands are available at a price range of Rs 9,000 to Rs 36,000 depending on power and features.
Air quality in Delhi-NCR has been at the season’s worst for the last couple of days as a combined effect of smoke from stubble burning and moisture turned the region into a “gas chamber” leaving people gasping.
Yesterday, Union Health Ministry had issued an advisory in view of the severe air pollution in the city, asking children and persons with breathing difficulty to not venture out in the open.
Panasonic India Business Head Purifiers and SHA Syed Moonis Alvi said air purifiers are witnessing a remarkable increase in sales and the company is targeting around Rs 12-15 crore sales during this period.
“As North India contributes almost 80 per cent to the industry sales, the market will continue to be dominated by metros, with Delhi NCR being the main action place,” he added.
Eureka Forbes MD and CEO Marzin R Shroff said: “Across the country, the demand of air purifiers has been on a significant rise showing month-on-month growth, owing to the degrading air quality in India.”
The sales of air purifiers at Eureka Forbes have seen an increase of almost 80 per cent in last one month itself, he added.
Respirators maker 3M India is also looking at increase in sales due to rising pollution levels that breached the permissible standards by multiple times.
“Due to the deteriorating air quality across the country and especially in Delhi and surrounding areas, we are seeing a trend of increased usage amongst people from all walks of life,” 3M India Senior General Manager, Personal Safety Division Nandakumar said.
Likewise, Sharp Business Systems President-Consumer Electronics Division Kishalay Ray said it is human nature to keep the necessary action pending till the last moment and the current pollution has been the trigger for consumers to buy air purifiers.
“Last year during first week of November, we sold 7,000 air purifiers. Current year season has just started and we are seeing very very strong growth,” he added.
According to Honeywell Homes and Building Technologies, India General Manager, Homes Sudhir Pillai: “Over the last two days, we have seen a more than fivefold spike in sales and around 8-10 fold increase in enquires at our customer care centre. We are already selling aggressively through both online platforms as well as large and small format retail stores.” PTI PRJ KRH RKL