Continued sector growth in Germany in 2011

The 2 442 building and home improvement stores in Germany recorded by the German BHB, the Retailers’ Association for Building, Home Improvement and Gardening, achieved a combined gross sales figure of € 18.7 bn in 2011. That is a nominal increase of 1.5 per cent on 2010, or one per cent like-for-like. This means that the DIY stores in Germany experienced growth for the third year in succession.When it comes to product categories, occasional and flat-pack furniture showed the strongest sales growth with 8.8 per cent, followed by coatings (+7.3 per cent) and wood/synthetics (+6.5 per cent). The leisure/hobby/handicraft ranges were unable to avoid a sales decrease of 15.9 per cent. They were followed by wallpaper/floor coverings/interior decoration (-8.3 per cent) and everything subsumed under “other ranges” (-5.2 per cent). The BHB expects nominal sales growth of between 1.8 and 2.0 per cent for the current year.