World Furniture Outlook Report 2012

Based on CSIL processing of data from official sources that cover the 70 most important countries, the world furniture Outlook Report 2012 says that world production of furniture is worth about US$ 376 billion, about 261.000 million euros.

The leading importers are the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The major exporters are China, Italy, Germany and Poland.

The recession in the US caused a major decrease in furniture imports (from US$ 26 billion in 2007 to about US$ 24 billion in 2008 and 19 billion in 2009). Growth of imports resumed in 2010 (reaching US$ 23 billion). All major furniture importing countries have seen decreases in imports during the recession. By 2010 no major importer had fully recovered (i.e., no country had reached the pre-recession level of imports although Canada and Japan are near it). Recovery is particularly slow in the UK.

In the last ten years world trade of furniture (defined as the average between total furniture exports for the 70 major countries and total furniture imports into the 70 major countries) has grown faster than furniture production and has consistently amounted to about 1% of world trade of manufactures. World trade of furniture amounted to US$ 96 billion in 2009 (19% below the previous year) and grew to US$ 107 billion in 2010. World trade of furniture would be likely to grow by 6% in 2011 and 2% in 2012, reaching a total of US$ 116 billion, still below the 2008 level.

Forecasts of changes of furniture demand indicate stagnation in Europe (because of recession in Western Europe and growth only in Central and Eastern Europe and in Russia), slow growth in North America, more substantial growth in the Middle East and Africa and in South America and bright conditions in the Asia and Pacific region.