Page 27 - Climate Control News Magazine March 2021

Building Automation
Growing demand for connected devices
APAC REMAINS FRAGILE
Carrier Global Corporation president and CEO, David Gitlin, said the company has been gaining traction in the Asia Pacific region but it is still a market that remains fragile.
“The Asia Pacific was actually showing a bit of strength toward the end of last year for the first time in eight or nine months,” he said.
Speaking at Carrier's fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call last month, Gitlin said the company was “pleasantly surprised by some of the traction we started to see in parts of Asia outside of China.”
While China has remained a strong market for Carrier, Gitlin said places like Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong are still a mixed bag for a multitude of reasons.
“Fourth quarter sales in China were up 10 per cent, orders were up about five per cent and refrigeration was particularly strong where there was an increase of 20 per cent,” Gitlin said.
“It was nice to see progress in Southeast Asia but it is still a watch item.”
tentional and deliberate approach to launching the Carrier Way,” Gitlin said.
“Our culture reinforces our value and is cen- tred around customers, agility, innovation, tal- ent and winning, and the energy level within Carrier is tremendous.
“In addition to culture we have invested in and promoted existing employees, while infusing the team with key outside talent who have brought fresh perspectives and proven leadership.
“WE INVESTED $400 MILLION
IN R&D, WHICH ALLOWED US TO INTRODUCE OVER 120 NEW PRODUCTS LAST YEAR.”
“From its culture and our growth mindset, we are taking a very disciplined approach to capital allocation. In the span of just nine months we reduced our net debt from about $10 billion to approximately $7 billion and ended the year with over $3 billion of cash.”
This balance sheet improvement now opens the door to bolt-on M&A.
In short, Gitlin said there were no surprises, sales were up two per cent and residential HVAC remained very strong with a 25 per cent year-over-year increase.
There was $453 million of adjusted operating profit putting Carrier in a strong position for 2021.
THE GLOBAL BUILDING automation and controls market was valued at $US101.91 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $US215.59 bil- lion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 11.10 per cent during the forecast period.
Europe is expected to be the leading contribu- tor to the global building automation and controls market, followed by North America and Asia-Pa- cific, according to Allied Market Research.
The building automation and controls system is a centralised system that controls, monitors, and records the functions of building services systems. Building facilities, which are monitored and controlled by a reliable BACS system tend to maintain the building environment more effi- ciently and reduce the building’s environmental impact and energy costs. In addition, the build- ing automation system broadly refers to creating network systems of hardware and software that monitor and control a building’s facility systems such as electricity, lighting, plumbing, HVAC, and water supply.
The growing deployment of building auto- mation systems in large office buildings, shop- ping complexes, and public transport areas such as railway stations and airports, is expect- ed to drive this growth. However, lack of inter- operability between devices hampers growth of the market.
The HVAC control segment contributed the maximum revenue to the market. It also ac-
counted for a 40 per cent share in 2019 due to the penetration of artificial intelligence and IoT for the advancement of HVAC systems.
In addition, the residential segment is ex- pected to grow at a faster rate of 12.90 per cent, owing to increased awareness for smart homes, development of application-specific solutions, and increased utilisation of con- nected domestic appliances.
“EUROPE WILL CONTINUE TO BE THE LEADING CONTRIBUTOR TO THIS MARKET FOLLOWED BY NORTH AMERICA.”
Europe contributed maximum revenue in 2019 and is expected to follow the same trend during the forecast period. Factors, such as in- crease in penetration of digital electronic de- vices and high adoption of advanced technolo- gies, have provided several growth opportunities for the building automation and controls market in Europe.
As a result of COVID-19, the construction market is expected to witness an abrupt down- turn this year. However, a slow recovery is an- ticipated to begin next year in 2022.
The residential segment is growing at a faster rate of 12.905 per cent.
CLIMATE CONTROL NEWS
MARCH 2021
27