The German kitchen furniture association VdDK presented its figures on 21 September in Löhne. Sales rose by 2% in the first seven months, after three years of decline, and orders grew more in value than in volume. Imports cover 4.3% of the German kitchen market, and a third of them come from Poland.

On 7 September we reported that the German furniture industry closed the first half of the year 2.7% below last year and that kitchens were the only segment still growing. On Monday, in Löhne, the German kitchen furniture industry association Verband der Deutschen Küchenmöbelindustrie (VdDK) presented its own figures, for January to July 2026.

In the first seven months, German kitchen furniture factories sold around 3.4 billion euros' worth, 2% more than in the same period of 2025. For the first half of the year, the figures published on 2 September gave a rise of 1%; the difference comes from July. Exports grew faster than sales inside Germany, by 2.8% against 1.4%. Kitchen factories have 46.7% of their sales outside the country, against the 35.3% of the whole German furniture industry.

Kitchens are also the kind of furniture Germany buys least from other countries. Imports cover 4.3% of the German kitchen furniture market, a share the association calculates itself, while around 60% of all the furniture sold in Germany comes from outside it.

  
The July rise comes with two caveats the association set itself
In July, German kitchen furniture factories sold 466 million euros' worth, almost 9% more than in July 2025. Jan Kurth, the association's managing director, attached two caveats to that rise on the very day he announced it: the same month last year had been weak, and the holidays started somewhat later. “We are seeing demand stabilise, but, given the difficult conditions we work in, we remain just as cautious as we have been”, he said.

The German trade publication Holz-Zentralblatt sums it up the same way on the same day: a slight rise, after three years in which sales fell.

Orders grew more in value than in volume
From January to August, the orders received by German kitchen furniture factories came in 1.9% above last year's level measured in money and 0.7% above it measured in the number of kitchens. The figures are collected by the association from its own members, not taken from official statistics.

Among the reasons for concern Kurth named the prices of what the factories buy in order to produce, which are rising again. He links them to the uncertainty on the raw material markets, after the tensions in the Middle East.

At kitchen factories short-time work is at 13%, across the German furniture industry at 40%
In a survey the associations ran among their members, short-time work reaches 13% of kitchen furniture factories, in the third quarter. Across the German furniture industry, the share of companies planning it is 40%, according to the figures given at the conference on 2 September. Short-time work means, in Germany, that the company cuts working hours instead of making people redundant, and the state makes up part of the lost wage.

The largest export market fell. The growth came from smaller markets
In the first half of the year, deliveries of kitchen furniture to France, the largest foreign market, fell by 1.9%, to 294.5 million euros. The United Kingdom fell by 4.6%. These markets rose instead:

-Switzerland, by 12.4%;
-Belgium, by 6.9%;
-the Netherlands, by 5%;
-Spain, by 1%.
Outside Europe, the association singles out South Korea, at 20.8%, which moved it from 12th to 9th place among the export markets. The other three markets it names went down. In the United States, deliveries fell by 37.5%, and the association puts the drop down to the American import tariffs. In China they fell by 20.6%, and there Kurth speaks of a heavily undervalued currency and of subsidies for Chinese manufacturers. Exports to Saudi Arabia fell by 24.1%, on the effects of the war in Iran.

Germany makes its own kitchens
Imports of kitchen furniture into Germany fell by 9.2% in the first half of the year, to around 77 million euros. Who supplies them:

Poland alone accounts for 34% of all German kitchen furniture imports and grew by 7.4%;
-Lithuania fell by 4.2%;
-Austria, by 5.5%;
-Italy, by 35.8%;
-China, by 58.4%.
The ready made kitchen is not the product you break into the German market with. Of the countries the association names, the only one that grew in the first half of the year is the one that already supplies a third of the imports. For furniture as a whole the ratio is the other way round: around 60% of the furniture sold in Germany comes from imports, against 44% in 2019, and in the first half of the year Germany brought in less furniture from both Poland and Romania.
......

Source: revistadinlemn.ro