- A climate-driven buying frenzy is reshaping demand for cooling products, rewarding Chinese exporters that spent years preparing for a market few expected to ignite
- From portable air conditioners to misting umbrellas, Zhejiang manufacturers are finding that solving Europe’s structural constraints—not competing on price—is becoming the new formula for growth
When a French buyer first messaged Mao Feifeng on WeChat in mid-June asking whether he still had portable air conditioners in stock, the question made little sense.
European customers normally begin placing orders in October, months ahead of the following summer. June is when Mao, general manager of Ningbo-based Jiafeng Electrical Appliance Co.,Ltd, expects to be focused on China’s domestic peak season.
Puzzled, he opened the news. Across Europe, governments were issuing heat warnings as an unprecedented early-summer heat wave swept the continent.
Within days, his phone was flooded.
Every day brought 20 or 30 new WeChat contacts looking for the same product: a white, wheeled portable air conditioner sitting among two dozen prototypes lining the walls of his office in Cixi, a manufacturing town in Zhejiang province.
While the outdoor temperature climbed to 36 degrees Celsius, Mao barely had time to finish a cup of tea before another inquiry arrived.
For Mao, the sudden surge was the payoff for a bet he made years earlier.
After nearly three decades building molds, he pivoted into portable air conditioners in 2021, investing tens of millions of yuan in tooling, production lines and components.
His plan was straightforward: capture China’s summer demand.
Instead, Europe became the market that transformed his business.
A market gap
The reason lies less in rising temperatures than in Europe’s buildings.
Air-conditioning penetration remains remarkably low across much of the continent—around 5% in the U.K. and just 3% in Germany.
Many historic buildings prohibit drilling through exterior walls. Even where installation is permitted, approval procedures can take months and installation fees often range from €1,000 to €2,000, frequently exceeding the price of the unit itself.
Portable air conditioners neatly bypass those constraints. They require no permanent installation, no wall modifications and no government approval—only an exhaust hose extending through a slightly opened window.
“European houses have thick walls and excellent insulation, but once they heat up they become giant ovens,” said Jiafeng’s Mao. “For many households, portable air conditioners are no longer a comfort product. They’re becoming a necessity.”
From unexpected orders to factory rushes
By late June, a sales representative representing Chinese offices of several European e-commerce platforms tracked Mao down with a simple question.
“How many units can you ship right now?”
Mao counted his available components.
“Eight thousand.”
“I’ll take all of them.”
The two reached a verbal agreement. But before the deal could be finalized, another customer showed up at the factory and placed an order for 1,500 units on the spot.
Mao immediately messaged the first buyer: inventory was down to 6,500.
The reply came almost instantly.
“Don’t sell them to anyone else. I’m wiring the deposit now.”
Orders have since snowballed.
Production lines now operate from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., workers’ monthly pay has risen from just over 7,000 yuan ($1,030) to more than 10,000 yuan, and trucks wait outside the factory gates to collect units almost as soon as they leave the assembly line.
By the end of July, Mao expects to have shipped between 20,000 and 30,000 units. New buyers continue arriving—from procurement agents serving European supermarket chains and cross-border e-commerce sellers to exporters of lighting fixtures and luggage looking to capitalize on the boom.
His experience reflects a broader shift unfolding across China’s manufacturing heartland.
Chasing the same opportunity
Large appliance makers are benefiting as well.
Midea’s PortaSplit portable split air conditioner, designed specifically for Europe, has already shipped more than 200,000 units this year, with sales doubling from a year earlier.
Retailing for roughly €699 ($799) to €900 in Germany, the product has become so scarce that resale prices have reportedly climbed as high as €5,000.
One German software developer even created a website tracking inventory across more than 1,100 retail stores nationwide.
At one point, only a single store still had stock. The site now charges a monthly subscription fee to notify customers when units become available.
Its success was years in the making.
According to Midea’s European air-conditioner product manager, the concept originated with the company’s local European team, before engineers in China and industrial designers in Italy spent three years bringing it to market.
The outdoor unit weighs less than 10 kilograms, allowing one adult to install it alone.
Engineers relocated the compressor into the indoor unit to reduce outdoor weight and accommodate Europe’s diverse window designs, while noise reduction required another one to two years of technical development.
Midea has since secured between 300 and 400 European patents related to the product.
Europe not the only frontier
The boom is also showing up in trade data.
According to Ningbo Customs, exports of cooling appliances from Ningbo to Europe reached 2.73 billion yuan during the first five months of the year. Fan exports rose 29.3% to 950 million yuan, while ice maker exports climbed 36.8% to 290 million yuan.
Yet companies are responding in different ways.
Aux Group, a Ningbo-based manufacturer of refrigeration equipment like air conditioners and fridge, has been scrambling to add another 65,000 portable air conditioners to meet European demand after sales in the region doubled during the first five months of the year.
Yin Changgeng, executive general manager of Aux’s air-conditioner manufacturing business, argues the success of Chinese cooling products has little to do with aggressive pricing.
Instead, he says, Chinese manufacturers have identified a structural weakness in Europe’s air-conditioning market and built products specifically to address it.
The company has also established after-sales service networks across seven European countries covering more than 1,000 service locations, enabling response times as short as one hour in many areas.
Its next priorities include further reducing operating noise—a particularly sensitive issue for European consumers—and strengthening carbon-footprint management throughout production.
Not every exporter is chasing Europe.
Cen Yipin, general manager of Zhejiang Jiuyou Electric Co., Ltd. in Cixi, concluded the economics no longer make sense.
Obtaining CE certification costs roughly 50,000 yuan per product, while compliance standards continue changing almost every year.
“Europe has become a traditional market with increasingly modest returns,” he said.
Instead, his company has shifted greater attention toward North America, South America and the Middle East.
Finding opportunity beyond air conditioning
Others have found opportunities outside air conditioning altogether.
In Yiwu, a world-famous marketplace for small commodities, Xingbao Umbrella Co., Ltd. has turned a simple parasol into a cooling device by integrating a water bottle beneath the handle.
Once opened, the umbrella sprays a fine cooling mist while also incorporating a built-in fan.
The product has become popular in Spain, Germany and France after founder and general manager Zhang Jiayuan’s mother, Zhang Jiying, noticed that Europeans tend to spend long hours outdoors during summer.
Manufacturers in nearby Wuyi, a county in Jinhua, are experiencing similar momentum. Orders for outdoor canopies and foldable shade structures have already been booked through early 2027.
Preparing for the next wave
Back at Jiafeng’s factory, however, Mao is already thinking beyond this summer.
At the Canton Fair last autumn, European customers began asking whether the company could produce 12-volt and 24-volt portable air conditioners.
The requests pointed to a larger concern.
Europe’s aging power grids may struggle if air-conditioner ownership accelerates rapidly.
“This year it’s just heat,” said Wang Weidi, the company’s electrical control technology director. “Next year it could be heat combined with power outages.”
His team is now developing portable air conditioners designed to operate with solar panels and battery-storage systems—a technically demanding product that has already defeated some much larger competitors.
The company has spent five years and tens of millions of yuan pursuing the technology.
Ironically, the domestic heat wave Mao once counted on never became the catalyst he expected.
Europe’s did.
“The reason you can seize an opportunity when it arrives,” Mao said, “is because you’ve been preparing for it long before anyone else noticed it.”
This story is adapted from an interview originally published by Zhejiang’s state-run Chinese-language digital news portal Tide News. The Yangtzeer edited the copy and supplemented it with additional materials.
