Reviewing the misery of first-quarter numbers
Jerry Epperson -- Furniture Today, June 1, 2009
We just received a lot of new numbers and knowing how our readers delight in quantifying the misery, here they are!
In the first quarter of 2009, domestic wood furniture shipments fell 28.6%, but imports did modestly better with a 23.6% decline. Imported wood furniture from China fell 26.8%, and Vietnam, which showed a 19.3% increase in 2008, declined 7.7% in the first quarter.
Canada, our third-largest source for wood furniture fell a whopping 43.5%! Our next-largest source nations, Malaysia and Indonesia, fell 22.1% and 15.9%, respectively.
In the first quarter, wood furniture imports (excluding component parts) were 65% of all wood furniture sold in the United States.
In upholstery, where 27% of the product sold here was imported in the first quarter, imports were down 24.4% vs. a decline of only 22.7% for domestic. China showed a 17.3% decline in the first quarter, while our other large sources for upholstery cratered. Mexico, Italy and Canada showed first-quarter declines of 39.9%, 40.2% and 50.4%, respectively.
Even imported cut-and-sewn fabric covers (or “kits”) fell 8.4%.
The mattress sector is doing better, at least in a relative sense. The 95% of the mattresses that are made here showed a 17% decline, while the small proportion of imports fell 4.2%. Mattresses from China fell 13.1% while shipments from Mexico actually increased (remember that word?) by 10.5%.
At retail, the government says that total retail sales of furniture and mattresses fell 8.7% in the first quarter, including all the different routes of distribution, or 12.1% for sales through furniture stores alone. In our opinion, the real retail numbers are down at least 10% more, and the recent domestic and import shipment numbers seem to reinforce our opinion.
Would it help to know that we are not alone? Stoves, microwaves, trash compactors, and garbage disposal units are down 17-18% this year, and refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners are off 21-22%.
And in a global sense, the U.S. economy is doing better than other developed nations. Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are in even deeper recessions than we have been experiencing. China just had its weakest economic growth in over a decade with a GDP increase of “only” 6.5% in the March quarter, but it has a target growth rate for the year of 8%. In contrast, the U.S. GDP declined 6.1% in our first quarter.
Last week, it was announced that 93% of economists say the recession will end this year. Agreement among economists? Now that is scary.
