As toxic air settles over Delhi-NCR and other parts of North India, air purifiers are flying off the shelves. Retailers and brands say enquiries and sales have shot up, especially since Diwali. The bigger change, however, is in who is buying them and when.
Air purifiers were long treated as a niche product bought mostly in India’s biggest metros. Until 2025, roughly four out of every five units sold went to buyers in Delhi-NCR. That picture is now changing, with demand picking up in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, even though the capital region still leads.
Croma, the electronics chain run by Tata Group’s Infiniti Retail, says it has sold more than twice as many air purifiers in 2026. “North India, particularly Delhi-NCR, remains the strongest market, while Mumbai also sees an uptick during periods of poor air quality,” said its CEO and MD, Shibashish Roy.
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More families are now thinking about the quality of air inside their homes, though bad-air seasons are still what drive most purchases.
Amazon India said its air purifier sales doubled within a single week. A spokesperson said shoppers are turning to its AI shopping assistant to weigh up models by room size, filter type and extras such as live AQI sensors. To meet urgent needs, the company has stocked more purifiers from brands like Philips, Honeywell and Eureka Forbes on Amazon Now, which delivers within minutes in over 120 cities.
Buying Before The Smog Hits
Brands say customers are no longer waiting for the air to turn hazardous before buying. Pooja Baid, chief marketing officer at Versuni India, formerly Philips Domestic Appliances India, said that although 2026 has had fewer severe pollution days than last year, sales have been steadier. She described it as “a shift from reactive, panic-driven buying to more proactive adoption”.
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Xiaomi India says its air purifier sales have grown roughly fourfold from a year ago, helped by better stock planning. Gautam Batra, its associate director of product marketing, expects the market as a whole to expand by about 20 percent a year and believes it has plenty of room to grow.
Across the category, buyers are also looking for newer features, such as live air quality readouts, app controls, and heating or humidifying functions.
At the premium end, Dyson says traffic to air purifier pages on its Indian website more than doubled in October from a year earlier. Engineer Alex Hudson said people, especially in Delhi-NCR, are beginning to treat purifiers as a household essential rather than a luxury.
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Delhi’s Air Still ‘Very Poor’
On Saturday, Delhi’s 24-hour average AQI was 367. Seventeen of the 59 stations that shared readings were in the ‘severe’ band, 38 were ‘very poor’, three were ‘poor’ and just one was ‘moderate’. The Air Quality Early Warning System expects PM2.5 and PM10 levels to fall over the next two days.
Consulting firm The Knowledge Company expects the market to more than triple in size, from Rs 320 crore in FY25 to Rs 1,000 crore by FY30, at a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent.
(with PTI inputs)
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