Air conditioner sales defy chilly weather

Major electronic appliance producers, in the middle of this cold season, are scrambling to win as many orders for air conditioners as possible before summer arrives, offering discounts and giving out gifts.
According to electronics makers, that’s not strange at all. They say the number of pre-orders determines their annual sales. In 2005, when the summer was predicted to be the hottest in a century, Samsung Electronics Co. had early orders for 20 percent of its total output. More than 1.5 million units were sold by all makers. Last year, on the contrary, weather agencies forecast a moderate summer, thus making Samsung less prepared for exploding demand from the unexpected late summer heat.
“Added to the consumers’ bad memories of last year, when they could not buy air conditioners due to a lack of supply, projections that the worst heat wave would hit the nation are expected to boost the portion of preorders by up to 50 percent from last year,” said Youn Baek, a managing director at Samsung. Early sales could reach 300,000 units at the maximum, he predicted.
Air conditioner manufacturers have also added new technology and gadgets to their systems. LG Electronics Inc., the country’s largest air conditioner maker, said it had developed a “smart inverter,” which adjusts cooling capacity according to the number of people in the area it cools. LG also installed a robot to clean the filter automatically. It said the robot would save 10 percent in annual costs by keeping the unit at peak efficiency.
Daewoo Electronics Co. has announced a “dual cooler” air conditioner with independent cooling fans and heat exchangers at the top and bottom.
Samsung Electronics has a dual air-handling unit that it says is capable of cooling a living room and up to four other rooms at the same time. Its rival, LG, last year put on sale an air conditioner that could cool three rooms with one air-handling unit.

By Kim Chang-woo(JoongAng Ilbo) / Seo Ji-eun(Staff Writer) spring@joongang.co.kr