(Yicai Global) June 2 -- Air conditioner sales are surging in China as temperatures heat up, with the hot weather arriving earlier than usual this year, and many Chinese white goods makers and retailers are reporting rapid turnover.

Aircon sales soar around 20 percent whenever a heat wave hits, such as in 2016 and 2020, Peng Xiandong, general manager at the large white goods division of China Market Monitor, one of the Chinese units of German market research firm GfK, told Yicai Global.

And this year the hot weather has come 10 days ahead of schedule, Peng said. In 2023, the weather is highly likely to turn to El Nino from La Nina, with very high temperatures. Aircons will continue to sell well for some time, especially in the north of the country, he added.

Sales in southern China are doing particularly well at the moment. Hisense Group’s aircon sales jumped 50 percent in some parts of the south of the country last week from a year ago, said Wu Weizhen, general manager of unit Hisense Air Conditioning's Guangzhou division.

Aircon sales are growing notably due to the heat, said Wang Mingzhi, general manager at Midea Group's Guangzhou arm and boss of a store selling competitor Gree's aircons in southern China.

Sales are also on the rise in other parts of the country as summer approaches.

"Household aircon sales jumped 60 percent last month," an executive at the Zhongbai Electrical Appliance in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing said. Although the average transaction amount is unchanged, the number of aircons that customers buy on average has increased.

As a result, aircon makers are jacking up production. This month 17.8 million units are due to roll off the production line, a jump of 38.6 percent from a year ago, data from research body Beijing All View Cloud Data Technology showed. Of this, 6 million are for export, an increase of 29.9 percent year on year, while 11.8 million are for sale in China, a gain of 37.7 percent.

General retailers are also experiencing a big jump in sales. Suning recently logged a 95 percent surge in aircon sales through its brick-and-mortar outlets, boosted by June’s 618 shopping festival.

E-retailer JD.com’s aircon sales more than doubled between 8 p.m. on May 31 and midnight on June 1, the four hours before the shopping gala began, from the same time last year, and aircon installation services doubled, according to data from the Beijing-based firm's white goods and household supplies department.

Editors: Shi Yi, Kim Taylor