the office furniture market | France

1.1 Presentation

The office furniture market in France includes all the players involved in Italian workspace design, including manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Office furniture is designed specifically for use in commercial and corporate spaces, such as meeting rooms, individual workstations, cafeterias and lounges. It can be segmented by product type (seating, workstations, tables, storage units and accessories) or by material (wood, plastic, metal, fabric and leather).

The global office furniture market has been growing well in recent years, with some estimates putting the market's compound annual growth rate at 3.1% for the period 2020-2027.

In France, the market is in good health. Indeed, it maintains significant growth, (+2.4% in 2018). But the market suffers from strong international competition: thus since 2018 it is foreign groups that hold the major part of the market (51%). The turnover of domestic manufacturers, meanwhile, shows -1% in 2018, but this figure should be qualified, because it is strongly linked to the difficulties of the leader Majencia. Thus if we remove Majencia from the calculation, the national players achieve a growth of 2.27% over this period. This is far from the fall that emerges from the overall figures.

In 2019, office and store furniture manufacturers suffered a 0.1% decline in sales compared to 2018. This decline could be even greater in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The distribution players today divide the market between resellers (41%), direct sales by manufacturers (33%), mass retailers (21%) and online sales (5%).

The trend in the market is towards the sale of services, such as design advice. Thus within the market itself, it is the sale of services that is experiencing the most significant growth (+18% in 2018).

The return of the theme of well-being at work is leading to a trend towards the reinvention of the workspace. In France, the traditional office is losing ground to the advent of flex offices and co-working spaces. In these new spaces, comfort is the key word. Thus, the demand is turning towards quality while maintaining its requirements in terms of optimization.