GERMANY – According to the statistics compiled by VdDK (Association of the German Kitchen Furniture Industry) as informed by EUWID, the German kitchen furniture industry increased its sales by 20.3% to € 414.2 million in April and compared to the same month last year.

The growth in exports of 27.7% and totaling € 172.2 million was higher than domestic growth, which stood at +15.6% and achieved € 242.0 million. By markets, the Eurozone is highlighted as it generated € 130.2 million in sales, an increase of 29.5%.

In line with the stronger development abroad, the export quota increased by 2.4 percentage points to 41.6% in April.

Sales of the German kitchen furniture industry for the first four months of 2018 consolidated at € 1.611 billion, up 6.1% on the same period of the previous year. The gains achieved in January (+4.5%), February (+10.0%) and April more than compensated for the decline of 6.6% in March.

Domestic sales increased by a total of 3.9% to € 969.0 million in the January – April period. Abroad, growth was more than twice as high at 9.7% reaching € 641.9 million.

In the four-month period, sales in the Eurozone also increased by 10.6% to € 488.9 million, with above-average growth.