screed mortar sales fall by almost a fifth
Together with the market research company B+L Marktdaten, the Association for Insulation Systems, Plaster and Mortar (VDPM) has published the current screed market statistics with an outlook for the current year 2024. The industry cannot escape the negative trend in the construction industry and has to record significant declines.
Overall, the situation is very serious and will probably not improve in the second half of the year. For the overall market in Germany, the experts at B+L expect a noticeable decline to 2.7 million m3 by the end of 2024, after 3.4 million m3 in 2023 (3.6 million m3 in 2022). This corresponds to a decrease of 19%. From 2022 to 2023, the decline was still 7.5%. The massive decline in new construction, triggered by increased interest rates and construction costs, will also affect sales of screed products in 2024. "The continued low approval figures for residential construction, which fell by another 25.1% in the first half of 2024 compared to the previous year, do not suggest any recovery for the time being," says B+L.
The full extent of the decline becomes clear in the detailed breakdown by product type. According to the B+L forecast, there will not be a single type of screed in 2024 without a double-digit decline in sales. Cement screed will lose the most (-22.7%), followed by calcium sulphate flow screed, where the decline is between -21.9% and -18.7% depending on the type. Calcium sulphate screed for construction sites will lose 18.4%, cement screed for construction sites 18.1%. Cement flow screed will record a decline of -15.5%, and rapid screed of -12.4%. Sales of all other screeds will fall by 21.1%.
As in recent years, the market shares of the various types of screed have changed very little, and the order remains unchanged. Conventional cement screed is still in the lead with 1.15 million m3 and a share of 42.1%, followed by calcium sulphate flow screed with 0.76 million m3, which corresponds to a 27.6% market share. The further distribution includes calcium sulphate screed with 0.25 million m3 (= 9.0%), cement screed (bagged goods) with 0.24 million m3 (= 9.0%), other screeds with 0.18 million m3 (= 6.6%), rapid screed with 0.10 million m3 (= 3.9%) and cement flow screed with 0.05 million m3 (= 1.9%).