Germany is the leading furniture market in Europe

The world market is currently moving and developing at an unprecedented speed, globalization is bringing the world's markets closer together. International trade transactions and financial flows are interlinking the world's economies. Then there are the rapidly growing, young economies which are becoming new players on the old world market. Within Europe Germany represents the most important furniture market. Germany is the leader in worldwide per-capita consumption of furniture and furnishing items.

The German furniture industry concluded the year 2017 with a generally stable turnover development by a total of € 18 billion. After three years of strong growth, the German furniture industry was able to maintain its high level, even though the industry's sales growth slowed in the course of 2017.

The German furniture industry currently employs 84,000 people at around 500 companies. The total turnover of the industries represented by HDH/VDM reached about € 35 billion in 2016 and € 35.6 billion in 2017.

We assume that following the encouraging trend in 2017 we will achieve a stable or even positive overall result for 2018. In our sector we believe that a slight growth is possible.

Exports - Imports

The increasing foreign successes achieved by the German furniture industry have led to an increase in the export quota to 32.5 percent. Within the last 20 years the export quota has thus doubled, because in 1995 it was still around 14.4 percent. From January to October 2017 a total export volume of € 8.8 billion was achieved and this is a stable result compared to the previous year.

Contrary to the trend of the last years the foreign trade deficit has become lower. As exports stayed stable from January to October 2017 and imports decreased by 0.9 percent, the import surplus decreased by 4.6 percent compared to the previous year.

The main target region for sales of German furniture abroad is and remains Europe. Of the total furniture exports in 2016, 70 percent were to the countries of European Union (EU-28). Increasingly, the Eastern European and Asian countries are becoming more important for us. These markets are becoming increasingly attractive for our manufacturers not only as an additional production location, but also as the sales/export market of tomorrow.

The head association

The HDH/VDM (Hauptverband der deutschen Holzindustrie/ Verband der Deutschen Möbelindustrie e.V.) is the head association of the German woodworking and furniture industries with 13 special associations and 10 regional associations. The main task of HDH/VDM is to look for the economical, political and technical interests of the German furniture industry. They both developed strategies, ideas and not at least analysis for the international export markets.

HDH/VDM - Verband der Deutschen Holz- und Möbelindustrie / Association of German Woodworking and Furniture Industries

Flutgraben 2
53604 Bad Honnef
Germany

Phone: +49 22 249377-0
Fax: +49 22 249377-77

E-mail: info@holzindustrie.de
Internet: www.holzindustrie.de