Europe Building & Construction Sheets Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends & Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

Construction was the most important end-user industry for sheets in 2021, accounting for almost 75% of the market. Sheets are utilised in flooring, walls & ceiling, windows, doors, roofing, building envelop, electrical, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) and plumbing applications in the building sector because of their light weight, ease of installation, and energy-saving properties. Fences and walls are also used in both residential and commercial construction projects.

Construction equipment sales in Europe rose steadily until 2019, when they peaked. However, the business saw a significant fall in 2020 and 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2025, it is expected that sales in this industry would not rebound to their pre-COVID-19 levels. 2021 saw consistent trends across the equipment sub-sectors with all product segments recording growth in sales of between 22% and 30%. Concrete machinery saw the strongest growth, slightly above the levels seen in the other sectors. The figures surely include a statistical 'base effect' of yearly comparison, with the enormous drop of the first pandemic lockdown in 2020. However, after weathering the Covid crisis, underlying demand within the industry has remained strong and is on track to close the gap with record sales levels of 2017.

From a regional perspective, the markets that were hit hardest in 2020 - particularly the UK and Spain - saw the best performances in 2021. Southern Europe and CEE markets saw above-average growth in sales, and even the mature markets in Northern Europe saw similar levels of recovery. None of the markets saw a fall in sales in 2021, and the only market that experienced single-digit growth was the high-volume German market. The fact that it has still not reached saturation levels can be considered a positive outcome. Turkey continued its recovery from the catastrophic levels of decline seen in 2018/19 and saw the highest levels of growth across the market regions.

Providing an outlook for European construction equipment market in 2022, according to European construction equipment association CECE, the business climate index for the industry recorded its highest ever value in the July 2021 survey and maintained extremely high levels throughout the rest of the year. In the first two months of 2022, there was another small improvement both for the current business situation and future sales expectations. European manufacturers hope that supply-side bottlenecks will create less concerns for the rest of the year. CECE says the demand-side clearly remains strong, as all equipment sub-sectors were expecting business to improve in the months leading up to the summer of 2022.