The European raised floor panel market, which performed steadily during the COVID-19 pandemic, is currently facing a slowdown due to decreased construction activities. Despite a slight decline of 0.5% in 2024, the market has shown resilience, particularly in renovation projects. The renovation segment has surged by 15.5% since 2020, while new constructions lag behind. Germany leads with a 26.3% market share, though Spain and the UK are expected to perform best in 2024.

Wood and Mineral Panels: The Go-To for Premium Solutions

Wood and mineral panels dominate the European market, holding substantial shares in France, Spain, and Benelux. Wood panels, already the biggest segment in these regions, are expected to continue growing. Mineral panels remain the second most popular, particularly in Italy and Germany, despite a slight dip due to raw material shortages. Encapsulated steel panels, although underperforming in the UK, are gaining ground in other areas.

Rising Data Centers and Changing Construction Trends

Data centers are driving market growth, with a forecasted annual increase of 3.5% until 2027. This surge counters the decline in the office segment, impacted by the rise in remote work and coworking spaces. The rapid expansion of cloud services, increased data consumption, and the push for digital transformation are fueling the need for more data centers. Public investments in healthcare and education are anticipated to mitigate some of the losses in the coming years. The stabilization in material prices and rising interest rates hint at modest price increases in the coming years.

Dominance of Key Industry Players

The raised floor panel market is led by prominent companies such as Lindner (Germany), Kingspan (UK), Mero (Germany), Gamma Industries (France), and Nesite (Italy), which together hold a significant market share of around 48%. These industry leaders drive the market through strategic innovations and acquisitions, shaping the competitive landscape.

After 2 years of sustained growth, the raised floor panels market has been affected by the COVID-crisis and is expected to experience a quantity loss -6,0% in 2020. Despite an increase in renovation, the fall in new non-residential projects, especially office/administration and commercial segment in the next 2 years will keep the market well below the 2019-level until 2023, as quantity growth will resume only in 2022 in most countries.

Wood and mineral panels most popular as premium solutions

The largest material segments for raised floor panels are mineral with 31,0% quantity shares, which are however falling a bit in part for a reduced availability of the raw material, and wood with 30,6%, which is expected to raise up to 31,1% up to 2023. Wood is already the biggest segment in France, Spain and Benelux, while mineral panels are above 40% in Italy and Germany.

Encapsulated steel is at 28,0% and is the dominant material in the UK market with 68% quantity shares, regaining some of the lost shares as aluminium prices stabilized in 2020.

Hollow floor is extremely popular in Germany with 22,0% quantity shares, but is losing relative to the other segments because of their reduced functionality, especially for office and data centers.

Public investment as silver lining?

Among the positive factors, more investments in healthcare and education by European government will help limit the losses in the next 3 years. Still, most panels are destined to offices and to commercial enterprises and new constructions for these segments will decline strongly in 2021 as new projects will be put on hold. At the same time, renovation of offices rose a bit in 2020 as companies take advantage of the temporary absence of workers during lockdown for restructuring internal areas.

European companies dominates the market

The European market is strongly concentrated, especially in the premium segment, with international and local players counting for 80% of the market and the TOP5 counting for 45% of the total market. Some acquisitions in the last few years increased market concentration further and created some bottleneck for raw materials, in particular for mineral panels. Among the main companies, there are Kingspan (mainly encapsulated steel), and 3 German players, Lindner, Knauf and Mero