Surprise, at the Milan International Furniture Fair which will close its doors on Sunday 14 April. Many, many Chinese entrepreneurs as buyers but practically non-existent as exhibitors. The reason - explains one of the leading international experts in industrial economics, Luigi Bidoia - is due to great development of the Chinese domestic market which absorbs local production, especially high-end ones. In practice, Chinese furniture makers are not interested in developing contacts to export outside Asia.
The numbers of this market are stratospheric and will be even more so since the five-year plan 2016-2020 of the Government, imposes a marked improvement in the quality of residential buildings, also starting the renovation of as many as 20 million homes in the cities. All of this is already generating gigantic demand. And it is precisely on the great expansion of the share of sales of high-end, quality furniture that everyone is looking at, to avoid the diabolical and invincible price competition with low-end producers, all Asian.
The Salone del Mobile confirmed this trend, showing the well-established existence of three segments of the world market: that of low-priced furniture for a value of around 120 billion dollars, that of medium-priced products just over 30 billion and that of the premium segment which is exceeding 35 billion. China alone exports $60 billion in value, half of the low-price sector, threatened moreover - underlines Bidoia - by Vietnam, Poland, Turkey and Mexico.
The growth of the high end of the large Chinese residential market has produced – according to data elaborated by StudiaBo on Exportplanning.com data – a stream of imports of quality furniture from Germany and Italy which has recorded very high increases over the last decade.
The second surprise of this Salone Internazionale del Mobile is that the Italian quality furniture industry has largely exceeded the sales of made in Germany in China, as the graph below shows with exemplary clarity.
Made in Italy exports rose to 2018 million euros in 400 and already in the first months of 2019 it showed further growth. Germany, on the other hand, remained firm at 100 million euros. However, the numbers are still very low since 400 million dollars for a gigantic market that is growing with double-digit indices is really a modest value destined to "explode".
Demand is fast outstripping supply e it comes from a market, the Chinese one, where the "Italian house", the Italian way of life, the Italian cuisine, everything that pertains to our way of life has a strong and growing capacity of attraction. To respond effectively to this dynamic and consistent demand, the individual small Italian companies are absolutely inadequate. In fact, they risk fueling a gigantic counterfeiting market, no longer banal and badly made, but refined and very similar to the original. As is already happening, however…
Meantime consortia and mergers are slowly forming, with acquisitions of historic brands. And just today, April 11, Umberto Cassina, descendant of the historic Brianza family who started the miracle of good Italian design together with other companies, and owner of MDF (design without compromises) announced that he acquired the brand, the collection and the distribution network of the iconic Acerbis founded by Lodovico Acerbis and today led by Enrico Acerbis. A collaboration that bodes well, with two extraordinary legacies behind it, full of prizes and presences in the most prestigious design museums.
