Furniture China 2012 Remains Strong Despite Global Economic Pressures

As one of the world's largest international furniture exhibitions, Furniture China has become a must-attend exhibition for the global furniture industry. Despite the worldwide economic weakness, this year's edition, which was held in Shanghai and came to an end on Sept. 15, was a great success. Around 190 foreign companies joined key Chinese furniture enterprises in organizing displays at the fair, some of which were located in nine national pavilions: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, Indonesian, Philippine, Malaysian, and Singaporean.

The five-day exhibition attracted 71,980 visitors, including 52,287 from China and 19,693 from overseas. The international visitors came from 140 countries and regions; 44.29% were from Asia (including the Middle East), 26.41% from Europe, 10.59% from North America, 9.36% from Oceania, 5.81% from Latin America, and 3.54% from Africa.

The top 30 foreign countries/regions in terms of visitor sources were Australia (with 1,534 visitors), the USA (1,501), Hong Kong (1,225), Korea (1,119), Japan (1,039), India (898), Malaysia (850), Taiwan (816), Russia (693), the UK (628), France (618), Canada (585), Thailand (466), Italy (442), Singapore (412), Germany (406), Indonesia (318), Brazil (289), South Africa (283), New Zealand (279), the Philippines (263), Spain (255), Turkey (251), Mexico (250), Belgium (239), the Netherlands (211), Saudi Arabia (192), Denmark (183), the UAE (175), and Vietnam (163).

Design is always a popular topic. For the furniture industry, making products that are more attractive and unique but still comfortable and humanistic is the eternal quest of designers and manufacturers. Two areas at this year's exhibition were arranged around design: Hall W5 (Design Hall) at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC), and DoD (Design of Designers) at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center (SWEECC).

Sixty companies showed off their latest products and design styles in Hall W5. Here, the organizer joined with “TRENDS” to launch a 500-squre-meter “Mock-up Room” where eight designers performed live arrangement and design reflecting their personalized styles, and more than 50 pieces of furniture works were selected from the exhibitors to represent future trends.

The Design of Designers exhibit offered a great opportunity to discover furniture masterpieces created by talented designers and to join forums and presentations. This was the first time that Furniture China arranged such a platform exclusively for designers. A total of 6,095 visitors showed up at DoD on Sep. 11-14.

World Furniture Summit

The exhibition also included two important conferences: World Furniture Summit 2012 and World Healthy Sleep Industry Conference 2012. As the most anticipated furniture meeting of the year, the 2012 World Furniture Summit was held at the Shanghai Pudong Kerry Hotel on Sep. 11. This year's event was bigger than ever before, with around 427 industry leaders from 200 prominent enterprises and 40 industry media representatives from China and abroad in attendance. The organizer invited 18 VIP guests from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, Romania, Brazil, and Japan to participate in the summit, where they described the current status of the furniture industry and communicated some of their more advanced concepts.

As one of China's top furniture industry meets, the World Furniture Summit not only maintained a professional approach toward sharing and collaboration, but also engendered an expansive vision and profound thought. According to the statistics, members of the China National Furniture Association and representatives of furniture associations, more than half of whom were chairmen, CEOs, directors, and other decision-makers, made up 74% of the total number of participants. Delegates said that the keynote speech and the dissemination of information made a huge impact on them, helping them to grasp the direction of future developments in the furniture industry more accurately.

"The World Furniture Summit provides a real and active platform for professionals from all over the world," commented Zhengfa Bu, president of the China National Light Industry Council. Pedro Romero, chairman of the International Alliance of Furnishing Publications (IAFP), said, “For IAFP is an honor participating with this very important group of relevant players in the world furniture market…. Our goal is common: ‘improving a new development of the furniture industry despite the recent global financial crisis.'”

The 2012 World Healthy Sleep Industry Conference was held on September 12 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center. With the aim of boosting the development of the “healthy sleep” industry, the summit focused on such topics as product innovation, brand building, and mattress industry consumption trends. During the conference, Mauro Spinelli, a senior expert with CSIL Industry and Country Studies, shared his projections of 2013 mattress industry consumption and product trends. With a 24% annual growth in consumption, he noted, China has become the world's second-largest mattress market; and, with the right production technology and the continuous expansion of its production capacity, it will soon become the world's second-largest mattress exporter as well. From the long-term perspective, he said, “environmental protection" will be the key words for mattress industry development in the future.

Outlook – Furniture China 2013
Furniture China 2013 will be held on September 11-15, 2013.

The organizer will continue strengthening the unique advantages of Furniture China and enhance the event in both size and quality to meet the demands of more and more visitors from all over the world. Each exhibition hall will be given a clear product focus, with more quality design and selected products from global furniture companies.