After years of development, China's wooden floor industry has established a complete industrial system, with production, consumption, and export volumes all ranking first globally, occupying a key position in the forestry industry chain.
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In terms of product types, the wooden floor market is rich and diverse.
Laminate composite flooring is the best-selling category, accounting for 44.07% of total market sales in 2023. It features advantages such as wear resistance, corrosion resistance, impact resistance, moisture resistance, and easy cleaning, with an affordable price, making it suitable for various places. It has the texture and feel of natural wood while overcoming the disadvantage of solid wood flooring's tendency to deform to a certain extent, with a moderate price. It is widely used in living rooms, bedrooms, and other areas of home decoration, favored by consumers who have certain requirements for flooring quality and stability. Bamboo flooring, made from natural bamboo materials, has advantages such as environmental friendliness, wear resistance, water resistance, and unique textures. With a short production cycle, it is a green and environmentally friendly flooring material with abundant renewable resources, more widely used in southern regions, and popular in home decorations that pursue natural styles and environmental concepts. Cork flooring, made from cork oak bark, features softness, comfort, good foot feel, sound absorption and noise reduction, thermal insulation, and natural environmental friendliness, suitable for places with high requirements for comfort and environmental protection, such as bedrooms, studies, kindergartens, and elderly rooms. With technological advancements and increased attention to outdoor space utilization, market demand is gradually increasing.
Regarding market demand, different regions exhibit distinct characteristics.
Wooden floor manufacturers are highly concentrated in eastern coastal areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong. These regions attract many wooden floor enterprises with their abundant timber resources or proximity to raw material sources, as well as relatively low production costs, becoming new industrial growth points. In economically developed eastern coastal regions such as the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Bohai Rim, consumers have high awareness and acceptance of wooden floors, strong purchasing power, vigorous market demand, and relatively high brand concentration. Consumers have high requirements for the quality, environmental performance, and design styles of wooden floors and are more willing to pay higher prices for mid-to-high-end products, with fierce market competition as well-known domestic and international brands have established a presence here. In contrast, with the rapid economic development and accelerated urbanization in central and western regions, demand for wooden floors is growing rapidly, with huge market potential. Nevertheless, with the improvement of residents' income levels and the transformation of consumption concepts, demand for mid-to-high-end wooden floors is gradually increasing. The wooden floor market in first-tier cities has fully entered a mature stage, while markets in second-and third-tier cities have become new competitive territories for wooden floor brands. Strong brands are increasingly expanding into these lower-tier markets, leading to sustained active sales in second-and third-tier markets.
However, China's wooden floor industry also faces several challenges.
In recent years, China's wooden floor production has been in a slow decline after reaching its peak, with most enterprises experiencing declining profits. On one hand, as the growth rate of total demand has slowed down, supply has become relatively excessive, and competition in the existing market has become fierce. Leading enterprises with advantages in the industry and technological leadership have gradually increased their market share through measures such as industrial chain control, technological innovation, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement, leaving most wooden floor enterprises in a state of minimal profit, thin profit, or even loss. On the other hand, consumers find it difficult to distinguish between wooden floor products of different brands, making purchasing decisions challenging, and are prone to buying low-quality or counterfeit products, which has led to a trust crisis. An increasing number of consumers are inclined to choose full-package decoration methods, diverting retail terminal customers for wooden floors. In the absence of innovative product support, China's wooden floor enterprises face severe challenges.
Overall, China's wooden floor market is rich in products, with distinct regional demand characteristics. Despite facing challenges, there are also many opportunities, such as the rise of emerging markets and product upgrading opportunities brought by consumers' increasing emphasis on quality and environmental protection. In the future, the industry needs to achieve sustainable development through innovation and improving product and service quality.
