Due to the growing incidence of respiratory diseases such as lung cancer, the demand for air quality monitoring systems is rising sharply in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. As per the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, lung cancer claims more lives than colon, prostate, and breast cancers combined. According to a study, out of the total number of deaths caused because of lung cancer across the globe in 2014, 21% occurred in various Asian countries.

Lung Cancer is mainly caused because of smoking. Geographically, China is the largest consumer of tobacco with nearly 301 million tobacco smokers. As a result, the total number of deaths caused because of smoking in the country will rise to 2 million by 2030, as per various reports and studies. Apart from the growing incidence of respiratory diseases, the increasing industrialization rate and the escalating air pollution levels are also fueling the demand for air quality monitoring systems in APAC. 

This is subsequently causing the rapid expansion of the Asia-Pacific air quality monitoring market. Outdoor and indoor monitors are the two main types of air quality monitoring systems sold across the APAC region. Between these two, the demand for the outdoor air quality monitoring systems is predicted to rise at a faster rate in the forthcoming years. AQM systems are used for monitoring the amount of biological, physical, and chemical pollutants in the air.

Out of these, the demand for these systems for monitoring the number of chemical pollutants in the air was found to be the highest during the last few years. Manual, intermittent, passive, and continuous are the most widely used types of sampling methods in the region. Out of these, the popularity of the continuous sampling method will be the highest in the upcoming years, as per the estimates of P&S Intelligence, a market research company based in India. 

The biggest end users of AQM systems in APAC are government agencies and academic institutes, petrochemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, power generation plants, and commercial and residential sectors. Amongst these, the requirement for air quality monitoring systems was the highest in government agencies and academic institutes in the years gone by. In APAC, Japan witnessed the highest sales of these systems in the past, primarily because of the rapid development of technologically advanced products by leading industry players in the country. 

On the other hand, the demand for these systems will rise rapidly in China in the forthcoming years. This will be because of the rising incidence of respiratory diseases and the escalating air pollution levels in the country. According to the World Air Quality Index project, which is an institutional forum that regularly tracks the air quality index (AQI) in over 80 countries, in Beijing, an AQI of 275 was observed recently, which is considered extremely unhealthy for the lungs.

Hence, it is safe to say that the sales of air quality monitoring systems will surge in the APAC region in the upcoming years, mainly because of the increasing incidence of various respiratory diseases and the soaring air pollution levels in the region.