F/T Consensus Forecast: Robust dollar gains
David Perry -- Furniture Today, December 18, 2005
High Point — The bedding industry will record a slight unit gain next year, but dollars, boosted by raw material price hikes, will post a strong gain.
That's what Furniture/Today's Consensus Bedding Forecast envisions for the mattress industry in 2006. The forecast, based on the industry projections of more than a dozen leading bedding players, calls for a unit gain of 0.2%, with a 7.4% gain in dollar volume.
Furniture/Today takes the projections, weights them based on the market share of the respondents, and then calculates the consensus of the bedding producers.
Five of the producers supplying estimates see the new year as being one of unit declines, while three others see a year of flat unit growth. But seven other producers see unit gains next year, and their optimism was enough to push the consensus figure just over the line into positive territory.
According to historical data from the International Sleep Products Assn., the industry has seen only three unit declines in the last 20 years: in 2001 (down 2%), in 1990 (down 1.3%) and in 1989 (down 1.5%).
There was widespread agreement among the bedding producers that growth in the dollar volume of bedding shipments will be strong. A few producers envision double-digit dollar gains for 2006, but most put the size of the gains in the mid to high single-digit range.
Reasons for the growth in dollars include rising costs of bedding raw materials, especially foam. Also, the industry continues to boost dollar volume with a growing emphasis on better bedding.
Producers sharing their projections with Furniture/Today included Sealy, Simmons, Serta, Spring Air, Tempur-Pedic, Comfort Solutions by King Koil, Therapedic, Kingsdown, Englander, International Bedding Corp., Stylution USA, Restonic, Park Place, Lady Americana and Bemco.
Dana French, senior research specialist at Furniture/Today, did the calculations used to develop the Consensus Bedding Forecast.
| Furniture/Today's forecast | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Percent change from previous year | |||
| Units | Dollars | ||
| 2005 | 2006 | 2005 | 2006 |
| Source: Furniture/Today, December 2005 |
|||
| 1.9 | 0.2 | 7.2 | 7.4 |
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