Source: Yicai Global
March 6 -- Disinfection appliances have been selling like hotcakes in China amid the novel coronavirus. The online retail volume of disinfection cabinets jumped over 70 percent in the first two months of this year over the same period last year, and multifunctional sterilizers have emerged for banknotes, clothes, footwear and other easily polluted articles, per industry data.
Offline sales in January and last year dropped from a year earlier, but online retail transactions in these sterilizing devices surged nearly 73 percent and sales climbed almost 45 percent, per the latest statistics on the market survey platform China Market Monitor. Online retail sales of other kitchen appliances such as water heaters, range hoods, and cooking utensils fell nearly 20 percent in the same period.
The market position of tableware cleaning cabinets has been hit by the rising popularity of automatic dishwashers in recent years, and they have lapsed into sluggish growth in consequence, an industry insider told Yicai Global, adding the epidemic has led to a turnaround in the market demand for the sanitary cabinets.
Guangdong Canbo Electrical's shipments have recently surged, though blocked logistics channels constricted supply last month, Luo Xiaojia, the firm's chair and president, told Yicai Global. The Guangdong province-based company has experienced a backlog of disinfection cabinet orders this month, and many products have been in short supply as a result.
Banknote disinfection has also drawn great attention, Luo told Yicai Global, adding the branches of some large state-owned banks in southwestern Sichuan province and the neighboring megacity of Chongqing have recently placed orders for bill sterilization devices with the firm. These 'money-launderers' can be also used at home and in libraries, offices, cinemas and subways.
Canbo Electrical will donate cleansing apparatuses to a local secondary school to sterilize its books and examination papers for teachers and students preparing for the national college entrance examination, Luo told Yicai Global.
This firm that specializes in disinfection cabinets will see a rise of 30 percent to 40 percent in sales volume this year from last year's 3 million units, Luo projects.
"I think disinfection products are likely to become a must-have household appliance after the epidemic and have a huge market potential," Peng Yu, general manager of China Market Monitor, said to Yicai Global.