Specifically, the MMFA notes an overall decline of 20% within all categories, compared to 2022. The exceptional growth is for SPC (by 3.9%), giving it an overall market share of 65% over other MMF categories. The wood category suffered the most last year, reflected in a revenue decline of almost -28.7% compared to 2022. For polymer products, the loss amounts to -19% of total sales.

Switching market share
Overall, the decline in the wood category was widespread, with a global sales decline of -28.7% and sales of 9.1 million sqm. Similarly, sales of polymer products declined by -19% with sales of 73.8 million sqm in 2023. SPC products saw their market share increase over the years, at the expense of LVT products and, to a lesser extent, wood. EPC's market share remains stable.
LVT click as a category suffered the most with a decline of -55.7% (sales of 14.2 million sq m). MMFA members sold 5.9 million sq m of EPC products, down -19.7%. Finally, for the best performing category, sales volume of SPC products increased, by +3.9% over the past year to total sales of 53.7 million sqm.

Consistency across regions
Despite the overall decline in polymer product sales, the largest markets remain the same compared to 2022. The Western Europe region leads in terms of volume, with sales of 43.6 million sq m, down -12% compared to 2022. The SPC category is the most successful in Europe, representing sales of 34 million sq m in 2023, followed by LVT click (sales of 11.8 million sq m) and EPC (sales of 4.6 million sq m).

This is followed again by the US with sales of 18.7 million sq m, representing a -38.4% decrease compared to 2022 sales figures. Asia experienced substantial growth of +52.5% (2.3 million sq m) in 2023, while Latin America lagged behind (+10.9%). France (sales of 12.5 million sq m) narrowly beat Germany (sales of 11.5 million sq m) as the countries where MMF sales were most successful, reversing last year's top two. In the wood category, the biggest losses were recorded in Europe (-28.8% in the west and -34.3% in the east).

Polymer products
For all polymer products, the US remained the largest market globally for MMFA members in 2023 with sales of 18.7 million sq m, although a -38.4% decline was recorded compared to 2022. While some countries such as Austria (+8.3%), Denmark (+21.8), Italy (+26.2%) and Poland (+34.5%) showed solid growth, other larger markets including Germany (-24%) and France (-4.8%) showed a downward trend.
In terms of LVT click sales, France remains the largest market for flexible LVT click products in Western Europe, with sales of 4.5 million m², despite a 24.6% drop in sales volume. It is followed by Germany with 2.2 million m² (-55.4%) and Great Britain (1.1 million m²; -54.5%).
For wood products, Germany and Austria account for about 78% of total sales, however, there was a decline in sales in Germany (-28.25%) and Austria (-27.44%). Besides the two largest markets for MMFA, Switzerland (359,164 m²; -15.82%) took over third place from Denmark (266,927 m²; -38.5%) compared to 2022.

Future
Predicting the future is difficult. Here, the MMFA points out that while overall sales figures reflect 2019 levels, the differences between each quarter of 2023 show that recovery and progress are not necessarily linear. Persistent global dislocations also continue to exert their effects. Finally, it does comment that the upward curve in the last quarter of 2023 across all regions and categories suggests that the market will stabilise quickly.