Market Research Report  |  RisetLokal Research Desk

Air Care Industry in Indonesia

Market Size, Product Segments, Scents, Channels, Regulation & Competitive Review (2019–2025)

A review of Indonesia’s air freshener business as it stands: how big it is, which formats are winning, who controls the shelf, and what shapes demand in homes, cars and bathrooms.

01 · Executive Summary

A small category with two owners and one fast lane

Air care is one of the smaller corners of Indonesian home care. Shoppers spent roughly IDR 3.6 trillion (about US$220 million) on air fresheners in 2025, which works out to under IDR 50,000 per household per year. Air fresheners are still a “nice to have” for most families, and a lot of lower-income households don’t buy them at all.

The category is small, but it moves. Growth was close to zero in 2020, then sped up every year after that, reaching about 8% in 2024 and an estimated 8–9% in 2025. In a country where consumer inflation was only 1.6% in 2024, that is real growth, not price.

Four facts frame the market today:

• It is a duopoly. Godrej’s Indonesian unit (Stella) and SC Johnson (Glade and Bayfresh) control about four-fifths of retail value. No third player holds more than 5%.
• Electric devices are where growth is. Battery-powered automatic sprays and similar devices produced about half of all new sales between 2019 and 2024. In 2023 they passed car fresheners to become the largest segment.
• Car fresheners have stalled. This used to be the largest segment. It has barely grown in value in five years, even though Indonesia now has more than 20 million passenger cars.
• Scent is how brands compete. Lemon and lavender lead, but floral launches built on local references, such as Balinese jasmine, are where most new products are going.

02 · Scope & Method

What we measured

The market covered here is air care sold to consumers through retail channels. It has five segments: car air fresheners, electric air fresheners (automatic sprays, plug-ins and diffuser devices, including their refills), gel air fresheners, spray and aerosol air fresheners, and other air care (mostly sachets, solid blocks and odour absorbers). Professional scenting for malls, hotels and offices, which is sold business-to-business, is outside the market size.

Figures marked ¹ are RisetLokal estimates. Our base series comes from syndicated retail tracking. We cross-checked it against the reported Indonesian revenue of Godrej Consumer Products, BPS household and housing data and Korlantas Polri vehicle counts, then rounded. 2025 is our own estimate, based on 2024 momentum and the market leader’s reported constant-currency growth. Dollar values use Bank Indonesia average annual exchange rates.

03 · Market Size

From IDR 2.6 trillion to IDR 3.6 trillion in six years

Retail value rose from about IDR 2.58 trillion in 2019 to IDR 3.33 trillion in 2024, a gain of 29%. We estimate 2025 at about IDR 3.61 trillion.

The more telling number is the growth path. The pandemic hit the category hard: car fresheners fell 6% in 2020 as people stopped driving to work. Growth then picked up in steps:

Year	Retail value (IDR bn)1	Growth, current	US$ m1
2019	2,580	–	182
2020	2,605	+0.9%	179
2021	2,695	+3.4%	188
2022	2,860	+6.3%	193
2023	3,070	+7.3%	202
2024	3,325	+8.3%	210
2025E	3,610	+8.5%	219

Adjusted for consumer prices, which rose about 14% in total between 2019 and 2024 according to BPS inflation data, the market grew by about 13% in real terms. Part of that came from more households buying. Part came from shoppers trading up from a simple gel cup to a device that needs refills every few weeks.

A quick sense check on the size. Indonesia has roughly 74 million households, which we derive from BPS’s 2025 housing statistics. A market of IDR 3.6 trillion therefore means about IDR 48,000 (US$3) per household per year, roughly the price of two or three gel cups. That fits a category that is bought often in cities and rarely in rural areas.

04 · Segmentation by Product Type

The mix has shifted from the dashboard to the living room

In 2019, car fresheners were the largest segment, with nearly a third of value. By 2025, electric air fresheners had taken that place, and the four main formats were much closer in size.

Segment	2019 (IDR bn)	2025E (IDR bn)	CAGR 2019–24	Share 2025E
Electric air fresheners	580	1,085	10.6%	30%
Gel air fresheners	650	970	6.5%	27%
Car air fresheners	785	830	0.4%	23%
Spray / aerosol	465	620	4.3%	17%
Other air care	100	105	0.1%	3%

Look at where the extra money came from and the picture is starker. Between 2019 and 2024 the market added about IDR 745 billion in annual sales. Electric devices supplied about half of it. Gel fresheners supplied about a third. Car fresheners, still almost a quarter of the market, supplied little more than 2%.

05 · Format Review

How each format earns its place

Electric. In Indonesia, “electric” mostly means a battery-powered automatic spray, such as Stella Matic or Glade Automatic Spray. The device puffs a small burst of scent every few minutes, and plug-in liquid units and oil diffusers fill out the rest of the segment. The business works like a razor and its blades: the device is cheap, often sold in a starter pack, and the money comes from refill cans. Refill multipacks lock a household into one system. Essential-oil refills and “natural” positioning have helped the segment reach younger urban buyers.

Gel. The gel cup, a jelly in a vented plastic pot, is the workhorse of the category. It needs no power, lasts several weeks and fits in a small bathroom. That matters in a country where many homes are compact and, according to BPS, about 13% of households still lack proper sanitation. Gel is also the format most often bought on impulse at minimarkets.

Car. Hanging cards (Little Trees), vent clips, and gel or can fresheners for the dashboard all sit here. Korlantas Polri counted about 20.1 million passenger cars in August 2024. Divided by that fleet, car freshener spending works out to only about IDR 40,000 per car per year. So the segment is small per car, and its users are concentrated: ride-hailing drivers on GoCar and GrabCar, taxi fleets and urban car owners. Price competition from cheap unbranded clips sold online is fierce, which helps explain flat value.

Spray and aerosol. Instant sprays used after cooking, smoking or bathroom use. Indonesia still has very high adult smoking rates (see our cigarettes market report), and many homes allow smoking indoors, which keeps a steady base of odour-killing sprays. Growth is moderate because the format competes with the cheaper gel.

06 · Fragrance Preferences

Citrus to feel clean, flowers to feel at home

Scent decides most purchases, so brands rotate scents constantly. The order of the leading scents has been stable since at least 2022. Grouped into families, it looks like this:

Fragrance family	Scents in the top nine (rank)	Why it sells
Citrus & fruit	Lemon (#1), Orange (#4), Apple (#6)	Linked with cleanliness; works in kitchens and bathrooms
Floral	Lavender (#2), Floral blends (#3), Rose (#8), Jasmine (#9)	Bedrooms and living rooms; lavender is also linked with keeping mosquitoes away
Fresh & cool	Ocean/marine (#5), Mint (#7)	Cars and offices; a neutral scent that suits everyone

Floral scents had a strong year in 2024 and the leaders followed. Glade launched Peony & Berry Bliss, and Stella introduced Balinese Jasmine Sensation. Jasmine (melati) carries weight in Indonesian culture, from weddings to its status as one of the national flowers, so local floral stories travel further than a generic “spring garden” label.

07 · Distribution Channels

Minimarkets for the cup, marketplaces for the refill pack

Air care is a modern-trade category. The two minimarket chains, Indomaret and Alfamart, run more than 40,000 stores between them and are the main point of purchase for gel cups and single refills, often in two-for-one deals. As in bottled water, being in every minimarket fridge or shelf is a big part of why the two leaders stay ahead.

Channel	Typical role	Formats that sell best
Minimarkets	Top-up and impulse buying; promotions	Gel, single refills, small sprays
Hyper- & supermarkets	Monthly shop; the full range on show	Device starter kits, multipacks
E-commerce	Bulk refills, bundles, free gifts	Electric refills, car fresheners, diffusers
Traditional trade	Warung and grocers outside big cities	Gel, sachets, low-price sprays
Auto accessories	Car-wash shops, petrol station stores	Car fresheners

Shopee, Tokopedia and Lazada matter more each year. Refills are light and easy to ship, so marketplace bundles with free delivery suit them. Online is also where imported diffusers, reed sticks and small local “home fragrance” labels get noticed. Wide use of e-wallets and QRIS (see our digital payments report) and free-shipping vouchers make small, frequent online orders easy.

08 · Competitive Landscape

Godrej and SC Johnson, then a long gap

Indonesia’s air care market is one of the most concentrated home care categories in the country. Godrej Consumer Products, which bought the Megasari group (Stella, HIT, Mitu) in 2010, is the leader. SC Johnson is a close second through two brands: Glade, and Bayfresh, which sits in a separate Indonesian company, PT Johnson Home Hygiene Products. Together the two groups hold about 82% of retail value.

Brand	Owner (origin)	Where it is strongest
Stella	Godrej / PT Megasari Makmur (India)	Gel, Stella Matic, car, pocket formats
Glade	SC Johnson (USA)	Automatic spray, aerosol, scented gel
Bayfresh	SC Johnson / PT Johnson Home Hygiene Products	Value aerosol and gel
Little Trees	Car-Freshner Corp (USA)	Hanging car cards
Ambi Pur	Procter & Gamble (USA)	Car vent clips, sprays
California Scents	Energizer Holdings (USA)	Car cans
Gajah	Fumakilla (Japan)	Gel and sachets at low prices
Bagus, Dahlia & others	Local manufacturers	Odour absorbers, price-led gels and sprays

Three things about this structure are worth noting.

First, the leaders’ shares keep rising. Godrej added about two points of share between 2020 and 2024 and SC Johnson a little under one. The ground came from imported car specialists. Little Trees, Ambi Pur and California Scents together held over 9% of value in 2020 and less than 7% in 2024, as Stella and Glade pushed their own car ranges and price fighting moved online.

Second, air care rides on insecticide distribution. The same two groups own Indonesia’s biggest mosquito brands, HIT and Baygon. Their sales teams already visit every minimarket and grocer with mosquito coils and sprays, and a gel cup costs little to add to the same order. A newcomer has to build that reach from nothing.

Third, the leader’s numbers line up. Godrej reported Indonesian revenue of about ₹1,989 crore (roughly IDR 3.7 trillion) for the year to March 2025, up 8% in constant currency, and named air fresheners as one of its market-share gain cells. Stella’s implied retail sales of about IDR 1.4 trillion, after trade margins, would be roughly a quarter of that revenue. That is plausible next to its larger insecticide business.

Marketing is event-led: Stella sponsors concerts such as Soundfest 2024 to reach young renters setting up their first kos rooms.

09 · Demand Drivers & Constraints

The indicators behind the numbers

Indicator	Value	Why it matters
Households (2025, derived from BPS)	~74 million	The base for home formats
Households in livable housing (BPS, 2026)	70.3%	Better homes bring more spending on comfort
Households with proper sanitation (BPS, 2026)	86.7%	Bathroom odour is the main use for gel
Passenger cars (Korlantas, Aug 2024)	20.1 million	The pool for car fresheners
Motorcycles (Korlantas, Aug 2024)	137.4 million	Most Indonesians do not travel in an enclosed cabin
Consumer inflation (BPS, Dec 2024 y-o-y)	1.57%	Recent growth is mostly real, not price

The drivers: smaller urban homes, more young renters, more cars, and a post-pandemic interest in a “fresh” home. The brakes: air care is the first item cut when money is tight, buyers cluster in Java’s cities, and the 83% of vehicles that are motorcycles will never need a car freshener.

10 · Regulatory Environment

Air fresheners are a health-registered household product

In Indonesia, air fresheners are classed as Perbekalan Kesehatan Rumah Tangga (PKRT), household health supplies. Each product needs a distribution permit (izin edar) from the Ministry of Health under Permenkes 62/2017 before it can be sold. Fragrance products sit in the low-risk classes. Gel and solid fresheners are usually Class 1, while pressurised aerosols are Class 2 and need a fuller dossier. Labels must be in Indonesian and carry the permit number. Imports also need a local registered company to hold the permit.

Halal obligations under Law 33/2014 are being phased in for many consumer goods. For foreign brands that want to sell through marketplaces, the PKRT permit is the main hurdle, because a listing without a permit number can be reported and taken down.

11 · Implications

What this means if you are looking at Indonesia

• Brand owners: a head-on fight with Stella and Glade in gel and automatic sprays is expensive. Better openings are in niches the leaders treat as side lines: premium diffusers and reed sticks sold online, essential oils, odour removal for kos rooms and pets, and professional scenting for hotels and retail.
• Contract manufacturers and suppliers: refill cans, gel cups, fragrance oils and battery devices are growing faster than the market itself. Local fragrance houses and aerosol fillers that hold PKRT know-how are useful partners.
• Investors: this is a small, profitable, highly concentrated category. It is best seen as part of a larger home care or insecticide platform rather than a standalone bet.

Executive Summary Slides

Air Care Industry in Indonesia: Executive Summary