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

19/10/2020

Copyright: Interconnection, Publication free of charge for coverage regarding the study and InterConnection Consulting.