Air purifiers and masks see an uptick in sales
NEWDELHI: Ram Agarwal woke up on Thursday morning and drove all the way from Gurgaon to Khan Markettogetholdofahighquality mask to breathe easy.
He was not alone at the Being Nirvana (Vogomask) outlet in KhanMarket.Thestoremanager, Manish,hadtofaceanirategroupof people because the store ran out of stock. About 100 masks were sold within10minutesattheoutlet.
Delhi is experiencing its worst smog in 17 years due to which air purifiers and masks have seen an uptick in sales post Diwali.
“Itisthesametrendeveryyear. People become aware during the post-Diwali when air quality is at its worst,” Manish said adding that sales of masks go up from about 20 to 300 per day post Diwali.
India has over 100 air product companies. Online retailer Snapdeal spokesperson said, “Over the last two years, we have seen a rise in the sale of air purifiers and masks, with year on year increase on the quantities sold.”
Jeff-Bezos-owned Amazon’s India division also said that they have witnessed a three-fold increase in unit sales of air purifiers in October 2016 as compared to the previous month and four-fold increase in unit sales of air purifiers against October 2015.
“About 50% of our orders are comingfromcustomersbelonging to cities like Delhi, Gurgaon and Bangalore,” a company spokesperson said.
However, companies and industry experts believe that air purifiers have still some way to go before the product, which comes under the category of preventive health care, goes mainstream.
“The Indian air pollution combating consumer durables market, according to independent studies is worth about ₹500 crore, and we are slowly seeing a rise,” Jayati Singh Chakraborti, business head and director marketing of Air division of Philips Personal Health.