Special LVT, PVC, and vinyl floors: extra business for the floor fitters

THE GROWTH JUST GOES ON AND ON

MMFA MEMBERS REPORT IMPRESSIVE GROWTH FOR RIGID EPC AND SPC PRODUCTS

Parquet floor fitters who offer LVT, PVC, and vinyl floors can certainly generate extra income. In the first half of March, the MMFA (the Multilayer Modular Flooring Association - an organisation which represents the leading producers of floors in Europe and their suppliers) announced some interesting figures for 2021, which indicate that it is precisely these ‘new’ floors which are continuing to grow and that further growth can be expected in 2022.

The MMFA celebrates its tenth anniversary in October of this year and has announced global total sales growth figures of 27% in all categories as compared to 2020. In contrast to previous years, sales of wood products by members dropped by 1.6%, whilst sales by members for all polymer products grew by 32%. In those figures Rigid EPC (expanded PVC core) and SPC (solid polymer core) products recorded impressive growth of 79% and 30% respectively as compared to 2020.

According to the MMFA, the significant total growth springs from consistent efforts by Rigid EPC and SPC. Amongst members, Western Europe and North America are consistently the top markets in sales volume, whilst Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Australia and Oceania are the most dynamic.

Volume per category and area

As we’ve said, sales of polymer products from all members have continued to grow in all regions. In particular, sales of LVT have risen this year (+27%), whilst sales of SPC have risen by 30%. During 2021, both categories achieved sales of 46 and 49 million square metres respectively. Finally, sales of EPC this year have also recorded a considerable rise amongst members this year, with a rise of 80% to 9.3 million square metres.

Members in Western Europe and North America account for 90% of turnover for all categories of polymer products, with the United States, Germany, and France as the top three markets. France scores considerably better than Germany in sales of LVT click.

According to sales volumes of polymer products for each region, Western Europe leads the way with sales of 54 million square metres, followed by North America (41 million square metres),Eastern Europe (6.1 million square metres), Asia (2 million square metres), Australia/ Oceania (811,617m²), Africa (654,124m²), and Latin America (634,731m²).

USA is the biggest internal market

This year, the USA has been the biggest market for the MMFA members for by far all polymer products, with sales of 39 million square metres. In Western Europe the top markets for all polymer products in 2021 were Germany (17 million square metres), France (14 million square metres), Great Britain (5 million square metres), and the Netherlands (4.5 million square metres).

This year, Germany has also been the biggest market for rigid polymer products, with total sales of 10 million square metres, followed By France (6 million square metres), and the Netherlands (2.6 million square metres). The USA is still the biggest market for sales of rigid products in North America, with 21.5 million square metres sold in 2021. On the Eastern European market Poland leads the way (1.4 million square metres), followed by the Russian Federation (369,667m²). As for sales of LVT click, France is the biggest market for the MMFA in Western Europe, with sales of 8.2 million square metres. France is followed by Germany (6.9 million square metres), Great Britain (3.3 million square metres), the Netherlands (1.9 million square metres), and Switzerland with 295,083m² in 2021. In Eastern Europe the Russian Federation has been the biggest market this year for LVT click (912,887m²). In North America the United States is still the biggest market with sales of 17.4 million square metres of LVT click products in 2021.

Growth potential

What stands out amongst MMFA members is that those in Western Europe (+43.7%) and North America (+16%) lead the way in sales of all polymer products. At the same time we note that the African market is growing rapidly amongst members and that also the Asian market is showing a nice even spread over a number of countries for all polymer products.

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