Consumer preferences for energy efficient room air conditioner in Malaysia: a conjoint approach

In order to ensure the success of energy efficiency standards and labeling program, a detailed consumer analysis of the room air conditioner market should be carried out. It is essential to know what factors influence preferences for room air conditioner, so that a program can be devised to increase the market share for an energy efficient room air conditioner. Previous researchers typically have used attitude and opinion surveys to investigate consumers´ perceived importance of product attributes. However, these approaches do not require consumers to trade-off among different attributes. In this study, conjoint analysis was used to analyze consumers´ preferences for room air conditioners described by a set of 5 attributes, examining the relative importance as well as the trade-off among these attributes. Among all attributes, price is the most important factor in purchasing a room air conditioner. However, different consumer groups attach different relative importance to these attributes was observed.