The Furniture Market and the Lesson of IMM 2026: A Signal for Europe

The IMM 2026 trade fair, the historic furniture event usually held in Cologne, Germany, every January, has come to a close. This year, the event was presented in a new, reduced-scale format. Although we did not visit in person, we conducted a quick data analysis through the fair's official portal, and the results emerging from the "exhibitor search" section are emblematic.

The Exhibition Numbers

By filtering based on geographic origin, one unmistakable data point stands out:

• China Filter: The portal returns 13 pages of exhibitors.
• Total Results (no filters): 17 pages.

This means that, roughly, 3 out of 4 exhibitors were Chinese. Conversely, filtering for Italy, the system returns only 2 companies (not two pages, literally just two individual entities). Searching for Germany, the results barely fill one page, featuring names like Deutsche Post and a few trade associations.

A Mirror of the Furniture Market

The point is clear: IMM, as a mirror of the furniture market in Europe, is now dominated by Chinese production. But if we broaden our perspective to other industries, what can we deduce?

Furniture manufacturing is naturally a "lower-tech" sector compared to industries like automotive. For this very reason, China began its climb here, progressively eroding the market shares of Italian and European furniture manufacturers.

A Mirror of the Automotive Market's Future?

Today, Chinese strategy is inevitably expanding toward sectors of higher complexity. The automotive industry, which remained a European stronghold until recently thanks to technological barriers, is no longer a safe haven.

Looking at what happened to the furniture sector and the metamorphosis of IMM, the trend is clear: unless there is a radical shift in direction, in a few years, we will see the European car market and its trade fairs dominated by Chinese manufacturers.