Room Air Conditioners: Consumer Survey in Italy and Spain

Abstract

A consumer survey was carried out in November 1998 using CATI telephone interview methodology in Italy and Spain with the same structured questionnaire. The purpose was to study: the degree of consumer satisfaction regarding performance of installed room air conditioners; the consumers’ motivation of their purchase; and finally the propensity to buy new, high efficiency, room air conditioners.

Over 2000 contacts in Italy and 3000 contacts in Spain were necessary to obtain representative interviews from 210 households owning an air conditioner with a cooling capacity below 12 kW and 90 households without air conditioning equipment, in each country. Questions were related to five different air conditioner types: multiple split units, single split mobile units, single split fixed units, packaged (window) units, and single-duct air conditioners.

A comparative analysis shows an existing market considerably larger in Italy with ten- percent penetration as compared to five percent for Spain. Both in Italy and Spain, fixed (single) split units are the most frequently installed.

Spanish consumers seem more satisfied than Italian ones with the cooling and acoustic performance (noise level) of their installed appliances. In both countries consumers owning multiple split and (mobile) split air conditioners seem the most satisfied. Owners of (fixed) split and multiple split systems would certainly repurchase the same type of air conditioner.

In both countries, but particularly in Italy, there is a high potential propensity for purchasing efficient air conditioners, which guarantee savings on electricity bills.