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The Home Office
Furniture sector forms part of the overall UK Domestic Furniture market.
To provide some comparisons, the overall UK Furniture market was worth
an estimated £3.8 billion in 2005 with the home office furniture sector
accounting for approximately 6% of sales.
The home office
furniture market has experienced moderate or steady growth between
1999-2005 due to a number of underlying factors, including increasing
household penetration of computers and continued changes in working
practices, leading to more people working from home.
In terms of the
product mix, the home office furniture market is comprised of desking,
seating and storage products. Home office desking is the largest sector
accounting for around 49% of the market in value terms. This sector has
exhibited growth in the last two years, mainly due to strong growth in
workstations. Another growth sector is seating, which has grown to 30%
over the last few years. Around three-quarters of all home office
furniture is estimated to be of the flat packed type.
The home office
furniture market is still in the growth phase of its product lifecycle,
and the vast majority of sales are new purchases. However, in recent
years the market has developed in terms of design and products are
becoming more durable, comfortable, sophisticated and aesthetically
pleasing. Therefore, a replacement market is beginning to grow
as consumers seek to replace lower value first time purchases.
Design trends are
also a key area of change for the home office furniture market. As the
market has grown, the available choice of styles of product has widened
and the market has become increasingly design-led with space,
practicality, flexibility, co-ordination and ergonomics becoming key
considerations. In particular, a key area of growth is the children
and teens designs, due to the increase in multiple PC ownership and
the increasing number located in children’s bedrooms.
A key driver for
home office furniture is the changing nature of the home, with a large
and increasing proportion of sole-occupiers as part of the overall
household population mix. This has lead to a growth in the flat and
smaller home market, which in turn is leading to design and purchase
considerations of space-utilisation and multi-functionality, in most
furniture used around the home.
The supply
structure for home office furniture is very fragmented and it remains
difficult to distinguish market leaders at this stage. For the purpose
of this report suppliers have been segmented into the following
categories; Major Suppliers, Traditional Suppliers, Other UK Suppliers,
Importers, and predominantly Office Furniture Manufacturers, although
there is some overlap between these categories. The major suppliers
hold a share of around 49% of the market, and most of these are
manufacturers that supply large retail chains such as MFI, IKEA and
Argos, including The Furniture Factory and Bush Europe.
The percentage of
home office furniture imported into the UK from Europe, the USA or the
Far East is high. This is due in part to the fact that in order to cut
costs, retailers are having products made overseas and importing the
finished items as own label.
Furniture
multiples continue to dominate in terms of distribution, largely due to
their strength in terms of national coverage and the growth in IKEA.
Multiple Office Superstores also take a substantial amount of share and
catalogue/mail order sales of home office furniture has grown strongly
over the last two years. Office furniture dealers have lost share and
there has been a noticeable increase in supply through other retail,
such as variety and department stores like John Lewis and
House of Fraser.
The market for
home office furniture is expected to continue to grow and change in the
medium term, driven by two key aspects – the growth of home computer
ownership and usage by the whole family, and an increasing proportion of
the workforce operating from home. The product and service requirements
of each of these sectors may be different, but their simultaneous growth
is expected to drive forward the market for home office furniture in the
medium to longer term.
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