Europeans want to do it themselves

The Italian DIY market had Europe’s highest rate of growth in 2010, when its sales volume increased by 3.1 per cent € 2.62 bn. The increase in Germany, the biggest market in Europe at € 43.28 bn, came to 2.8 per cent. These figures are taken from the Europe Consumer Barometer 2011 compiled by Commerz Finanz, a joint undertaking between BNP Paribas, a French bank, and the German Commerzbank. Otherwise the survey reveals downward trends or stagnation: France -0.3 per cent to € 19.00 bn, Spain -5.2 per cent to € 5.43 bn, Portugal unchanged at € 2.00 bn, Hungary -17.9 per cent to € 230 mio, Czechia -11.1 per cent to € 240 mio and Slovakia unchanged at € 80 mio. According to these figures, German consumers have the highest spend on DIY projects: € 803 per household last year given comparable incomes (€ 1 077 in absolute terms). They are followed by the Portuguese at € 598 (€ 510 absolute) and French households at € 537 (€ 685). Though these figures are regarded with a certain amount of caution by experts because of variations in defining the market and differing methods of collecting data on the size of the overall market in the individual countries. Moreover, no figures are available for the United Kingdom. By contrast, a consistently conducted representative survey for the Consumer Barometer provides the basis for statements about consumers’ intentions to buy building and DIY equipment in the course of this year. The authors of this survey ascertain a level of saturation in Germany, where no more than 25 per cent of the respondents express any such intention; that figure was 28 per cent just one year ago. In most of the other countries the figures have risen. An overview of the survey results: Purchasing intentions as percentage                   2010     2011 Spain:           17         23 France:         26         27 Italy:             21         23 Portugal:       16         16 Hungary:       15         20 Czechia:        34         33 Slovakia:       27         27 Average:       23         24