Market Overview
The global industrial and commercial floor scrubbers market size was valued at USD 4.62 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to reach USD 6.54 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 5.1% during the forecast period (2023–2031) due to the rising demand for hygiene and sanitization and advancements in technology that have led to the development of more sophisticated and automated floor scrubber systems.
Industrial and commercial floor scrubbers provide high cleanliness levels and keep the environment clean by removing dust and bacteria from the floor. Due to growing health and hygiene concerns, people prefer visiting clean and safe places. As a result, floor scrubbers have been growing across commercial and public areas such as shopping malls, cafeterias, and restaurants. Moreover, several government initiatives toward cleanliness are expected to drive market growth during the forecast period. Additionally, stringent health & safety regulations and a significant increase in the global healthcare industry are expected to accelerate the demand for industrial floor scrubbers in the foreseeable future.
Compared to manual cleaning, the concept of contact-free cleaning is expected to grow considerably in the years to come. As a result, several key players operating in the industrial and commercial floor scrubbers market are capitalizing on the growing trend of contact-free cleaning and expanding their production competencies. The healthcare industry and the other end-use verticals across the value chain, such as retail, hospitality, food, education, and government organizations, also embrace floor scrubbers.
The industrial and commercial floor scrubbers market is predicted to witness substantial growth in the coming years. This growth is mainly attributed to the several advantages offered by floor scrubbers over conventional cleaning techniques, including ease of operability, high cleaning efficiency, and quicker dry time. The need for industrial floor scrubbers gained immense popularity amidst the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic as healthcare facilities have increased their efforts to ensure adequate disinfection of floor surfaces.
Market Dynamics
Drivers: the convenience of operation and advantages of manual cleaning
Rapid advancements in technology have enabled significant changes in the cleaning and maintenance sector. Brooms and mops have been increasingly taken over by commercial cleaning equipment in the hospitality industry and commercial spaces like malls. The cleaning equipment, notably floor scrubbers, washers, and vacuum cleaners, are acquainted with sophisticated features that quickly help large clean spaces of the floor.
The noiseless functionality of the floor scrubbers powered by batteries reduces safety hazards significantly and is ideal for healthcare environments. For example, Dycon, a China-based floor scrubber manufacturer, offers noiseless battery-operated floor scrubbers for different surfaces, including cement, marble, epoxy resin, and ceramic tile. Such scrubbers are increasingly and extensively used in factories, supermarkets, government buildings, hospitals, and other commercial spaces.
A floor scrubber provides greater convenience than instantly mopping, cleaning, and drying larger areas. The compact models of walk-behind and ride-on scrubber machines also offer greater comfort in operating. These scrubbers are just required to push the machine along or ride-on devices. Floor Scrubbers are also manufactured with a wide range of settings, including an eco-friendly option and options to use limited water resources to clean the floor. For instance, Advance SC750-800, small commercial scrubbers manufactured by Toyota Material Handling, use little water depending on cleaning needs and may not require any chemical to clean the floor.
Besides advantages such as comfort and convenience, floor scrubbers help end-users decrease the associated labor cost. The initial upfront costs of scrubbers are comparatively higher than mops; however, most enterprises still prefer scrubbers as labor costs represent 90% of the total expenses incurred to maintain office floors. Through manual cleaning, an employee can clean around 5,000 square feet of floor in one hour, whereas a small auto-scrubber can clean around 13,000 square feet of floor. Moreover, larger machines can clean more than 100,000 square feet per hour. This makes enterprises depend on cleaning machines that offer a significant advantage in reducing the labor cost to a certain extent.
Drivers: adoption of lithium-ion (li-ion)-powered floor scrubbers
Cordless floor scrubbers have become one of the economical and user-friendly options for cleaning service providers. They offer benefits such as low cost, sustainability, and easy cleaning of small and cluttered areas. They have gained massive popularity among cleaning service providers. The scrubbers are powered by three types of batteries, namely lead-acid or wet cell batteries, gel or AGM batteries, and Li-ion batteries.
The lead-acid and gel-based batteries make the cordless floor scrubbers bulky and heavy and require frequent maintenance. The floor scrubbers based on these two battery types also suffer from terminal corrosion and get easily damaged if these batteries are overcharged. As a result, the life span of floor scrubbers featuring lead-acid and gel-based batteries reduces. This increases the cleaning service providers' overhead and associated labor costs.
Adopting a Li-ion batteries-based floor scrubber provides a cost-effective solution for cleaning and maintenance and helps overcome such obstacles. The Li-ion batteries are lightweight, energy-dense, and highly efficient batteries that require less downtime and offer fast charging, increasing the scrubber's longevity. Additionally, Li-ion batteries-based floor scrubbers are more efficient than lead-acid batteries-based floor scrubbers. For instance, Li-ion battery-based floor scrubbers are 95% efficient, whereas lead-acid battery-based floor scrubbers are 80–85% efficient. Also, the number of life cycles of a lead-acid battery is approximately 300 to 400 cycles, whereas a Li-ion battery offers 500 to 600 bikes.
In contrast to it, currently, lead-acid battery-based scrubbers are dominating the industrial and commercial floor scrubber market owing to their low cost. However, a Li-ion battery offers high overall efficiency, lower maintenance costs, and an increased life span of floor scrubbers. It also provides increased maneuverability and a long battery cycle. These benefits are expected to pave the way for Li-ion battery-based floor scrubbers to gain traction in the coming years.
Restraint: high upfront and maintenance costs
The cost of a floor scrubber acts as one of the crucial factors for market growth. There are various floor scrubbers, such as upright, walk-behind, and ride-automatic (rider). The price of an industrial and commercial floor scrubber varies based on the area size, equipment/scrubber size, manufacturer, material type, product type, and features installed. For instance, the typical cost of walking behind scrubbers is considerably low compared to the ride-on and robotic floor scrubbers.
Additionally, the total cost of ownership of floor scrubbers tends to be higher, considering the floor size and additional maintenance costs associated with the purchase. A floor scrubber includes sophisticated features and parts that include different power sources, accessories, and warranty packages, which are expensive to maintain annually. This restricts building service contractors from adopting floor scrubbers on a large scale.
Furthermore, the surge in the adoption of battery-operated floor scrubbers has also become one of the bottlenecks for market growth. This can be ascribed to the large-scale adoption of lead-acid batteries-based floor scrubbers that require frequent maintenance for long-term operation. Due to such high upfront and maintenance costs, the market will likely witness a setback over the forecast period.
Future growth opportunities in global industrial and commercial floor scrubbers market
- Emergence Of Autonomous Floor Scrubbers
Innovation, global competition, and market profitability are the key driving factors for the floor scrubber market expansion and growth. Companies are increasingly investing in research & development to develop sophisticated, energy-efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable products and solutions. Furthermore, advancements in robotics technology complement the Industry 4.0 revolution across the globe and are anticipated to be the prominent driving factors for market growth in the next seven years.
The fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, is driven by data exchange and automation in the manufacturing industry. It aims to create intelligent factories by automating every aspect of the manufacturing supply chain with the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing technology. In line with the growing adoption of Industry 4.0 practices and technologies, OEMs also provide innovative technologies to expand their customer base and increase market profitability.
Companies such as Minuteman Intl, CleanFix, and Avidbots are increasingly offering autonomous cleaning robots adopted in commercial markets. Furthermore, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for contactless floor scrubbers is also anticipated to drive market growth. For instance, in January 2022, "Brain Corp and Tennant company collaborated to introduce inventory scan, revolutionizing inventory management with AI-enhanced floor scrubbers". Due to these above-mentioned factors, the demand for autonomous floor scrubbers is likely to gain traction over the forecast period.
Regional Analysis
By region, the global industrial and commercial floor scrubbers market share is divided into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.
The North American market accounted for the largest revenue share in the market. It is estimated to reach an expected value of USD 3.8 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 5.6%. The need for industrial and commercial floor scrubbers in the retail industry drives market growth. For instance, in 2018, Walmart Inc., the American multinational retailer, stated that it is using the autonomous scrubber that is Auto-C in its78 stores in the US. Additionally, significant market players, such as Diversey, Inc., and Tennant Company, further aid the regional growth.
Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region in the market. It is estimated to reach an expected value of USD 2.4 billion at a CAGR of 9.2% during the forecast period.
Segmental Analysis
The type segment has been segregated into walk-behind, ride-on, and robotic scrubbers.
The walk-behind scrubbers segment holds the largest market share, and it is estimated to reach an expected value of USD 4.5 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 6.3%. Walk-behind scrubbers have handles and are manually maneuvered by the operator. These floor scrubbers are ideal for cleaning small, medium, and large areas up to 28,000 square feet. Walk-behind scrubbers are lightweight and convenient in business settings without an elevator. The main reason for the segment's rise is that these products minimize total cleaning costs.
Ride-on scrubbers account for the second-largest share in the market and are estimated to reach an expected value of USD 2.7 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 4.7%. Robotic scrubbers are the fastest-growing segment. It is estimated to reach an expected value of USD 2.22 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 11.34%. The growth of robotic scrubbers is mainly accredited to the increasing demand for autonomous cleaning equipment amidst the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the growing need for frequent cleaning has steered the rise of robotic scrubbers.
The industrial and commercial floor scrubbers end-user segment comprises retail, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, education, etc.
The manufacturing segment holds the most dominant share in the market. It is estimated to reach an expected value of USD 2.7 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 5.1%. This is due to the numerous advantages of floor scrubbers over manual cleaning. Scrubbers are more efficient, minimize manufacturing facility cleaning time, and boost staff productivity by allowing them to focus on other duties. Industrial scrubbers are more effective at cleaning and are built to withstand harsh conditions.
The retail segment accounts for the second-largest share in the market. It is estimated to reach an expected value of USD 1.8 billion by 2031 at a CAGR of 5.6%. The healthcare segment is projected to be the fastest-growing region, accounting for USD 1.2 billion at a CAGR of 6.3% during the forecast period. This growth is due to increased demand for contact-free cleaning and rising hygiene awareness. The number of daily visitors within the healthcare facilities and hospitals is significantly higher, which creates a challenge to keep the floor dirt and bacteria-free. Furthermore, the regulatory bodies across various regions have set cleaning standards for healthcare organizations to maintain hygiene at their respective facilities.
