KARACHI: Heatwave, coupled with high humidity, in the city for the last seven days has helped restore the lost charm of Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) units, though the spike in their demand is nowhere near the booming sales of power generators.

Dealers at Regal Chowk, Saddar, gave mixed views on UPS sales since the demand has been unsteady and the sales trend has changed with the start of Ramazan that coincided with the deadly heatwave.

Some said their sales have gone up by 70 to 80 per cent in the last week compared to last year, while others estimated a jump of 30 to 40pc.

“If a company sold 5,000 local UPSs last year, it’s expecting to sell 7,000 units this time around,” a dealer said.

Generally, many dealers were seen encouraging buyers to opt for Chinese inverters instead of locally manufactured units.

According to market sources, the price of local UPS is said to be static at the last year’s level, though the prices of imported inverters including Chinese-made ones have crawled up. The price of battery also remained unchanged in the last one year, they said.

An inverter (which powers four energy saver and four fans) sells for between Rs7,500 and Rs9,500 depending on the quality and finishing. Besides, a 200-ampere battery costs Rs14,000, coupled with Rs1,000 fitting charges. A locally made UPS of the same configuration is available at Rs7,000-8,000.

A Chinese inverter (five energy savers and five fans) costs Rs10,000-11,000 while the battery price and fitting charges come to Rs14,000 and Rs1,000, respectively.

Dealers said people are normally purchasing generators if the daily load-shedding duration is more than four to five hours or their area shuts down for at least eight to 10 hours.

UPS batteries cannot sustain longer duration of power cuts and the consumers need to change the battery every year which means a straight burden of Rs14,000 depending on the current battery price.

It was observed that in many areas dealers have stopped selling UPS as people are more interested in generators. However, dealers in Saddar do not subscribe to the view that UPSs/inverters have lost sales in the last one to two years against the backdrop of rising trend in imports of power generators. “Our sales were going normal even before the heatwave,” they said.

UPSs are also arriving in higher numbers in the name of inverter from China, giving a tough time to the locally produced ones. The Chinese product is small in size with digital display and other improved functions as compared to local UPSs.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2015

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