After a very promising start to the new year, the fire door industry in Western Europe experienced a major slump.
In the first quarter of 2020, the market fell by 11.5 percent in value compared to 2019. For the full year, Interconnection Consulting expects a decline of 5.6% compared to the previous year. The market level of 2019 is not expected to be reached again until 2023.
Italy, Denmark and Sweden Will See Double-Digit Declines
In Germany, the largest market for fire rated doors in Europe, a decline of 7.4% is expected for the year as a whole, caused in large parts by the strong declines in non-residential construction. One of the strongest slumps in the EU is currently forecast for Italy (-10.1%), while the fire rated door market in the Benelux countries and Great Britain will lose 8.7% and 7.6% respectively. Scandinavia is also hard hit by the crisis and will lose a total of 9.6%, with the decline in Denmark and Sweden likely to be in the double digits.
Great Expectations for EN16034
The market has high expectations for the introduction of new standards for the harmonisation of directives within the EU and Turkey in order to guarantee fair conditions for the manufacturers. However, these changes, which came into force in November 2019, only affected exterior doors and sliding doors.
The outer doors in particular affect only a slight proportion of all fire rated doors and therefore the effects on price harmonisation are not yet as strong as desired – explains Jan Hudak, the author of the study.
However, this is one of the big goals to narrow the big price differences in different countries. Therefore, in the future, wooden doors with fire resistance of 90 and 120 minutes will dominate at the upper end of the price scale, while steel doors will remain dominant at the lower end of the resistance scale (30 min and 60 min).
Gloomy Outlook
The fall in demand in the first half of 2020 will be somewhat weakened from September due to the building permits already issued – which total around 3 billion euros. The two-digit decline figures that are expected by summer can thus be partially offset. Nevertheless, the gradual easing of measures to curb COVID-19 will only partially lead to recovery. The market for fire rated doors will not fully recover from the crisis until 2022.
