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LVT, WPC, Rigid Core remain primary drivers of resilient category in the US
As reported by Floor Covering News, the resilient category continues to follow its blazing path from 2016 with aggressive growth just six months into 2017. Industry observers attribute this significant growth to LVT, while the manufacturers are attributing the growth to LVT’s rising subcategories: WPC and rigid core.
Based on the Floor Covering News research, LVT and its subcategories accounted for 42.3% of residential volume and 67.6% of residential dollars in 2016. Observers expect numbers in 2017 to reflect similar—if not more—control of the category. In 2016 the resilient category as a whole saw a 19.7% increase ($3.499 billion) over 2015’s $2.924 billion. This percentage is almost four times the growth of the overall industry. In addition, resilient captured 16.5% of the total flooring industry in dollars—the highest among all hard surfaces. Industry experts predict resilient numbers for 2017 will continue to rise, especially as waterproof products capture consumer interest. Experts predict that WPC and Rigid Core products will achieve meteoric growth while other flooring categories will continue to lose overall market share. Especially the laminate, with all the advent of WPC/Rigid Core, laminate will encounter a bigger hit, due to water and noise issues.
Ongoing developments
Experts predict that the growth of LVT will continue well into 2018. WPC/Rigid Core would become the larger sub-segment. These two are also expected to welcome at least 2 more years of aggressive innovation. Especially for Rigid Core, the industry will eventually see the moving away from WPC and more focus on Rigid Core.
Outlook of traditional LVT
There are many different opinions on the outlook of traditional LVT. Some concern that WPC and Rigid Core would cannibalise traditional LVT, especially the higher-end LVT, as market figures prove that multi-layer flooring is taking share over the click LVT. With the enhanced technologies and realistic attributes of these designs, the affordability and performance of multi-layer flooring, the vinyl option has become a clear competitor in the overall choice for flooring. Some other experts see the whole situation positively. Instead of category cannibalisation, they say the growth of these subcategories only makes LVT a much more dynamic flooring category as whole. The consumer or end user will have more possibilities to fulfill their individual needs regarding functionality, application and budget.
