A new market report has predicted that porcelain worktop sales will see a massive boost over the next several years, with a predicted sales increase of 46%.
The prediction comes from a newly published report by German management consultancy, Titze, called ‘Worktops in Europe – TOP 10 Countries in comparison from 2017 to 2030’, which analysed surface market trends across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Poland.
In these countries, laminate surfaces currently have a 37% share of the surfaces market, with quartz accounting for 20%, natural stone 17%, and porcelain ceramic 14.6%.
However, the report predicts that by 2030, hard surfaces will likely exceed laminate sales even further in the surfaces market, gaining a total market share of around 56%, and a drop in laminate sales to around 33%.
Analysts suggest within the hard surfaces sector, porcelain is likely to be the material to see the most growth between now and 2030, with sales predicted to increase by 46%.
According to the consultancy, this trend has been evident in the market for the last several years, despite the challenging conditions presented by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Research suggests that there are 7,261,000 worktops sold each year in the countries included in the study, and laminates are particularly popular in the British, French and German markets.
Looking at the market as a whole, the report also found that in the past two years, ex-factory prices have grown by an average of 14% from €1.36 billion (£1.16bn) to €1.55bn. A contributing factor is said to be material price increases, as well as hard surfaces becoming more popular with consumers.
Across the sector, kitchen projects are said to be responsible for a 74.9% of worktop sales, with 10.6% of sales being attributed to bathroom projects, 10% to contract business, with the remaining 4.5% being used in furniture construction.
