Furniture sales up in 2007? Let's look at the numbers
Jerry Epperson -- Furniture Today, May 11, 2008
The statistics are now available for the fourth quarter of 2007, and the changes are interesting.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, total consumer purchases of residential furniture and mattresses through all types of retailing grew 2.4% in 2007, but only grew 0.8% in the December quarter. No, we do not believe it, either. We expect the retail sales numbers to be revised downward.
Looking at wood furniture, domestic shipments fell 11.9% in the December quarter and dropped 7.9% in 2007. Imported wood furniture was flat in the December quarter at $2.7 billion, but declined 2.2% for the year.
Wood furniture imports from almost everywhere fell in the fourth quarter, including declines in product coming from China (3.6%), Canada (9.2%), Malaysia (3.2%), Indonesia (6.1%), Mexico (3.5%), and Brazil (23.7%) but they grew 35.4% from Vietnam. Vietnam has passed Canada to become our second largest wood furniture import source in the quarter, with Vietnam's total amounting to 24% of what we imported from China in the fourth quarter.
Upholstered furniture was a different story. Domestic shipments in the December quarter declined 0.4% and only grew 1.8% for the year.
Imported upholstered furniture grew 2.2% in the December quarter and rose 3% for the year. In the December quarter, upholstery imports declined from many of the major source countries, including Mexico (down 12.3%), Italy (down 11.5%) and Canada (down 26.5%), but shipments from China grew 7.2%.
By the way, in the fourth quarter the value of upholstered furniture we imported from China ($583 million) was more than three times the value of upholstery imports from the combined total of Canada, Italy and Mexico.
Of course, another way China has impacted the upholstery market is by shipping us cut and sewn fabric covers, a business that grew by 16.7% in the December quarter.
Using our formula for calculating market share, imports were 67.9% of all wood furniture sold in the United States that is ready to retail in the December quarter, up from 64.1% in the fourth quarter of 2006.
We estimate that 30.4% of upholstered furniture sold in the U.S. in the December quarter was imported versus 29.8% a year ago. Furniture made using imported cut and sewn covers or other imported components is still counted as domestic.
These numbers have all been adjusted to reflect the restated domestic furniture shipment numbers released by the American Home Furnishings Alliance in March.
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