After several years of healthy growth during the second half of the 1990s, the office furniture industry in Great Britain has entered a phase of stagnation or only modest growth. Most of the observed growth goes on account of higher prices. Sales in real-terms - that is after the elimination of the impact of inflation - are now approximately thirty percent lower than at the beginning of this century. We anticipate that growth this year and again next year will remain lacklustre and hover around the two percent range. If our predictions are correct, the market value will exceed for the first time the ?700 million mark this year.
Sales of filing cabinets and other office storage furniture fared particularly poorly. This is not surprising and a reflection of the continuing transition from paper-based offices to paperless offices. On the other hand, workstations and other system furniture, as well as office chairs have been performing better. In fact the market share of workstations and similar furniture is now close to one-half, while it was only in the forty percent range during the late 1990s.