After enduring a difficult trading year in 2024 and reporting similar revenue to the year before, Howdens CEO Andrew Livingston has warned that the UK kitchen market could see a further contraction in 2025.
Commenting on the state of the industry as part of the company’s Annual Report, Livingston admitted: “I don’t think the external market has done us any favours in 2024.”
In its 2024 full-year results, which were released last month, Howdens reportedly generated £2.322bn in revenue between January and December last year. This is a slight 0.5% increase over 2023’s revenue figure of £2.310bn.
Commenting on the future of the industry in the new Annual Report, he also predicted: “Given the prevailing macroeconomic environment, we expect market conditions to remain challenging and we anticipate that the total kitchen market may contract again this year.”
However, he argued that he believes Howdens is “well prepared for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead”, as it plans to continue protecting its margins by keeping product and input costs controlled.
Howdens chairman Peter Ventress also reflected on the difficulty of the past few years, explaining: “During the year Howdens continued to face into an uncertain geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, which remained a significant headwind in our end-markets. In particular, during 2024 the kitchen market in the UK fell for a third successive year and remains at cyclical lows versus long-term average volumes.”
He continued: “The Group has delivered another year of strong progress and while the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment remains uncertain, our business model is resilient, and we continue to look to the future with confidence.”
Discussing plans for the rest of 2025, Howdens CEO Andrew Livingston also said the business plans to further develop its “higher priced kitchen portfolio, where [Howdens is] underrepresented, and the one most associated with the high street independents”.
In pursuit of this, Livingston said that the trade kitchen retailer would be adding five new colours to its Hockley collection this year, described as Howdens’ “contemporary style premium kitchen family”.
