Exhibitors Expect Good 2019
From AHR Today, 2019
Atlanta—This could be a good year for business, according to 2019 AHR Expo Exhibitor Economic Outlook Survey.
In this year’s survey, 58.73% of the responding exhibitors rated their business prospects for 2019 as “good” while 28.57% rated their prospects as “excellent.”
Exhibitors’ optimism for their 2019 business prospects is comparable to last year’s enthusiasm. Last year, 61.7% of responding exhibitors rated their prospects as “good”—4.8% higher than this year’s response. But 27.2% rated their prospects as “excellent,” which increased by 5% this year.
In 2019, 23.81% of exhibitors expect their sales to increase by more than 10%, and 41.27% expect their sales to increase between 5 and 10%. Only 4.76% of exhibitors expect their sales to decrease in 2019, according to the survey given to exhibitors in the fall.
About 2,000 exhibitors are expected to showcase their innovative products at this year’s Expo at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
Responding exhibitors also believe light commercial, manufacturing/industrial and hospitals/health care have the brightest outlooks in 2019. Lodging, restaurants/hospitality, laboratories/cleanrooms and international markets were projected to have the worst optimistic outlooks for the year.
New construction and retrofit/renovation tied for best business prospects this year. Maintenance and replacement was the other option. Last year, new construction was the clear favorite for best prospects.
Reflecting the industry’s optimism for business in 2019, 63.49% of responding exhibitors are expecting to debut a product in Atlanta, which is 4.94% increase over last year, according to the survey.
This year exhibitors said energy efficiency, reliability and maintenance are the top concerns for customers, mirroring last year’s top concerns. Other options were indoor air quality, first costs, sustainability and comfort.
The 2019 survey also asked for exhibitors’ opinions on industry sectors, important issues and trends and more:
What do you see as the most important trend or issue in the HVAC&R industry?
- Growth in condensing boiler market
- The IoT will be the hot trend, smart controls will be more and more common
- Continued rise of VRF/VRV equipment in commercial buildings
- Energy efficiency
- Improved economy
- Economic slowdown impacting the construction industry, rising interest rates affecting residential housing
- Lack of trade school students entering industry
- Regulation
- Customer understanding and follow
- Outsourcing overseas still major issue
- Home to smart device connectedness
- Tariffs
- Tariffs
- Government regulation
- Need to hire more people
- Lack of direction on refrigerants in the chiller industry
- Zero net energy
- Continual rise in US steel prices
- Energy efficiency
- Ongoing tariff wars impacting steel prices and other goods from foreign countries
- Availability of labor
- The move to tempered cooling of warehouse/distribution, manufacturing and industrial space
- Efficiency and equipment footprints
- The increase in steel price will impact profits.
- Changing standard for equipment communication, IoT
- Inverter, ductless, VRF, IoT
- Steel tariffs and tariffs in general
- Connected Buildings (IoT)
- Internet of Things
- Import tariffs
- Cost increases for components because of 25% US government tariff and 10% tariff which results in higher prices to US consumers
- Volatile energy prices
- Material costs and tariffs
- Tariffs
- Indirectly - tariffs