Chinese Boom Index

Glance at Upholstered Furniture Development in H1 2016 from BHI Index

2016-07-22    [Source:PUdaily]

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PUdaily, Shanghai-According to National building materials home boom index, referred as to BHI, it edges down in January, February and May but moves up from March to April in 2016. The overall sales volume of national building material and furniture from January to May 2016 is around RMB 438.53 billion, up by 7.96% year on year. And here is the corresponding BHI.

BHI Index from Jan., to May, 2016

Specifically, BHI does the worst performance in the history from January to February with China building material and furniture market keeping downward since 2015. And BHI in February is higher month on month but still lower year on year despite it being the lowest in 2015. In January some building material and furniture market participants quit out of the market due to earlier Spring Festival this year than 2015 in the situation of continuous poor market development, leading to lower BHI compared with December in 2015. Besides, the building material and furniture market is also dragged down by weakening real estate market since late 2015 on account of seasonality. However, bullish views start to prevail in the market after Spring Festival resulted from peak season coming in home decoration Industry as well as real estate market in advance.

BHI, affected by continuously booming property market, moves up from March to April, and sales volume in national building material and furniture hypermarkets above designated size picks up sharply as well. Firstly, national property market thrives with transactions increasing in both quantities and prices since March because more rigid demand consumers who fear house prices would rise continuously finish house buying. In addition, home decoration and furniture demands from landlords are inspired by peak season along with earlier May Day promotions, which contributes to the growth of national building material and furniture market.

However, there is still inadequate support to shore up the national building material and furniture market amidst current weak macroeconomic environment in China. China PMI (purchasing managers index) is 50.1% in April 2016, standing slightly above in the expansion territory, but slightly down by 0.1% month on month but equivalent year on year, according to data from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP), and China economy is still under downward pressure due to uncertain factors in international business environment and unsteady ones in domestic market.

Nevertheless, sales of national building material and furniture keep growing but BHI falls down slightly in May. According to data from NBS, sales area of commercial housing is 47,954,000 square meters from January to May, up by 33.2% year on year but the growth is 3.3 percentage point lower compared with that in January to April. Real estate developers take cautious stance to invest despite real estate market developing steadily, which attacks consumers’ confidence to the market and necessarily impacts building material and furniture market.

According to analysis from PUdaily, China upholstered furniture grows slowly in H1 of 2016 and may keep the trend in H2. There is still a vast of potential for consumption in domestic upholstered furniture as it is still in development stage. Furthermore, real estate market in first-tire cities booming in H1 of 2016 also boosts upholstered furniture industry to some extent. Nevertheless, many upholstered furniture enterprises face with the problem including fewer orders along with lower profit margin but higher material cost like sponge or fabric due to slowing down development in China, which greatly weigh down the development of the industry.

National building materials home boom index, referred as to BHI, is published by the Ministry of Commerce circulation Industry Development Division and China Building Materials Circulation Association (CBMCA) to bespeak performance of terminal market of building material and furniture industry. It is formulated through collecting data of 40,000 specified building material and furniture businesses throughout the country, which indicates behavior and market-trend of building and home decoration material industry. It also shows conditions of rigid demand in real estate market when comparing with national real estate development boom index.

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