Furniture and lighting are among Italy's top sectors

Furniture and lighting are among Italy's flagship sectors: driven by strong post-Covid growth, Italian home design turnover reached nearly €32 billion, confirming that Italy remains the main production centre in the European Union, ahead of Germany.

This is the picture painted by the original estimates by the Intesa Sanpaolo Research Department, presented during Salone del Mobile.Milano 2023 in the talk on "Sustainable trends and prospects in lighting design" between Italian lighting and design entrepreneurs.

The furniture, lighting and design sector is devoting increasing attention to environmental sustainability through research into new technologies and the study of innovative materials for the design and illumination of green lighting devices.

Some key findings of the study "The scenario in the furniture and lighting sector: challenges and opportunities for growth", include:

• The year 2022 saw significant growth, with exports increasing by 13.4% for furniture and 8.5% for fixtures and lamps. Sales in the United States (+24.9% for furniture and +27.7% for fixtures and lamps) stood out in this respect, reaching €1.9 billion in 2022 (€382 million more than in 2021).
• The forecast scenario for 2023 and 2024 sees a slowdown in the growth of furniture and lighting – partly natural after the boom of the last two years.
• On the Italian domestic market, consumption will be penalised by the impact of energy costs on households' disposable income, while the growth of the furniture and lighting sector will be driven by excellent international positioning, particularly in China (a market where Italian home products have gained share among imports, which are still very limited), as well as in other Asian countries, such as Korea.

Download a summary of the study (in Italian only).

Photo credits/ Courtesy Salone del Mobile.Milano - photo credits: DR Diego Ravier (@diegoravier)