The total installed water cooler base in the United Kingdom grew by more than 1% in 2015, reaching 645,000 units. This trend continued, and according to the British Water Cooler Association (BWCA), the water cooler market value grew by 5% to a whopping £123 million.

The split between bottled water coolers and mains water coolers (POU) is around 50/50, and bottled water sales have also increased by 5% as the public continues the trend to drinking water in search of calorie-free hydration.

There has been a slight increase in terms of margin and prices for Bottled Water Coolers, with water costs and rental values either remaining stable or increasing only slightly. The POU sector on the other hand has increased over the past three years to nearly 50% of the installed units, and its share of market in revenue terms has declined to less than a quarter.

Karen Wells Senior Commercial Consultant from Zenith International Ltd said: “POU remains cut-throat. The key customers are usually the public sector and so this is a tricky area for companies dealing with their customers’ cost-cutting and head-count reductions. There are large, best price tenders to compete for and so the need to compete on price makes revenue generation ever more difficult in this segment. The return of business confidence in the private sector boosted bottled water cooler sales. This is excellent news for the industry”.

The UK water cooler market is composed of approximately 360,000 bottled water coolers. Over the last several years many BWCA bottled water cooler customers have migrated from bottled coolers to mains-fed plumbed-in coolers, but this migration seems to have all but ceased and BWCA predicts that the total market will enjoy modest growth of between 1% and 2% per annum over the next four years.

According to the report, the residential sector for bot mains and bottled water coolers is gaining slight momentum with the advent more compact cooler designs.