Winter sales no longer enough: Kyung Dong Navien and Kiturami bet on year-round business

South Korea's two boiler giants, Kyung Dong Navien and Kiturami Group, are pivoting to year-round business strategies. Kyung Dong Navien is targeting summer demand with a new air conditioner lineup while investing in residential HVAC systems anchored by ventilation air purifiers. Kiturami has moved into industrial HVAC, acquiring a series of refrigeration and air conditioning companies — including Kiturami Bumyang Cooling — to break its dependence on winter heating demand.

Kyung Dong Navien is leveraging the sales base it built in North America through water heaters and boilers to expand into residential cooling and heating products, including air conditioners and heat pumps, according to industry sources Monday. Kiturami, meanwhile, has made industrial cooling and HVAC equipment for semiconductor and battery production facilities and large commercial buildings a new growth pillar.

Kyung Dong Navien launched a variable-capacity air conditioner in the North American market in April. The product adjusts compressor output based on cooling demand, giving the company a summer product line to complement its existing water heaters and boilers.

At the AHR Expo 2026 held in the United States earlier this year, Kyung Dong Navien unveiled a hybrid water heater running on both gas and electricity, along with a full HVAC system. The company now offers a lineup spanning hydro furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioners and air handlers, positioning itself to address heating, cooling and hot water needs across North American homes.

The North American expansion is showing up in earnings. Kyung Dong Navien posted consolidated sales of 1.5022 trillion won ($1.12 billion) last year, up about 11 percent from the previous year. Overseas sales reached 1.0438 trillion won, accounting for 69.5 percent of the total — the first time the company's overseas sales exceeded 1 trillion won. North America alone contributed 865.8 billion won.

The company's year-round strategy is also advancing domestically. Following the launch of a dehumidifying ventilation air purifier in July last year, Kyung Dong Navien introduced the Navien Sleep Mat All-Season in June. The mat, previously known as a winter hot-water product, now includes a cooling function for summer use — operating as a cooling mat in summer and a hot-water mat in winter.

Ventilation air purifiers form another pillar of the year-round strategy. Kyung Dong Navien's dehumidifying ventilation air purifier combines fresh-air intake, indoor air exhaust and dehumidification in a single unit, addressing fine dust in spring, humidity in summer and ventilation needs in winter. The company also sells induction cooktops and 3D air hoods under its kitchen appliance brand Navien Magic — products designed to manage smoke and pollutants from cooking that can be linked to the ventilation air purifier system.

"Sales have traditionally been heavily concentrated in the third and fourth quarters," a Kyung Dong Navien official said. "Because South Korea, the United States and Europe are all in the Northern Hemisphere, many of our products are used in winter, which made profitability highly seasonal. Indoor HVAC products such as ventilation air purifiers help buffer that seasonality."

Kiturami entered the cooling business earlier than Kyung Dong Navien, choosing a strategy of acquiring refrigeration and HVAC technology and production capacity through mergers and acquisitions. The company acquired the Century Asan factory in 2003, followed by Bumyang Cooling in 2006. In 2008, it purchased Shinsung Engineering, then held by Shinsung E&G — a manufacturer of chillers, precision air conditioners and air handling units.

The acquisition strategy is now reflected in Kiturami Group's revenue mix. The group's total affiliate sales last year reached 1.61 trillion won, with non-boiler businesses accounting for roughly 70 percent. The group now generates more revenue from non-boiler businesses than from boilers.

Growth in the cooling segment has also outpaced heating. Kiturami Group's cooling division sales rose 43.3 percent from 494 billion won in 2017 to 708 billion won last year, while heating division sales grew just 21.5 percent over the same period, from 377 billion won to 458 billion won. Cooling's share of total sales edged up from 42 percent in 2017 to 44 percent last year, while heating's share fell from 32 percent to 28 percent. Cooling has now surpassed heating in absolute revenue terms.

Kiturami Bumyang Cooling supplies cooling towers to industrial facilities and large commercial buildings. Cooling towers dissipate heat generated by a building's air conditioning systems or industrial processes to the outside. Large factories and industrial plants require year-round cooling to keep production equipment running.

One market Kiturami has been eyeing closely is AI data centers. Servers generate substantial heat during operation, and data centers must run cooling systems around the clock to keep servers functioning — a dynamic that presents new business opportunities for industrial HVAC companies.

In a corporate advertisement released earlier this month, Kiturami Group laid out its vision for refrigeration and HVAC across a range of industries, including semiconductors, AI data centers, secondary batteries, nuclear power plants, and shipbuilding and defense. The campaign signals a deliberate effort to reposition the group's image — away from the household boiler brand of its past and toward a specialist in industrial heating, cooling and HVAC.

"Our company has grown into a comprehensive heating, cooling and energy group by expanding into cooling, HVAC and energy from the 2000s onward, when the domestic boiler market began to stagnate," a Kiturami Group official said. "Kiturami's HVAC technology is now broadly applied across South Korea's core industries, including semiconductors, AI data centers, secondary batteries, nuclear power plants, shipbuilding and defense."