DOMOTEX asia 2025 Data Revealed: Why Solid Wood Flooring Remains the Top Choice for Global Buyers?

From May 26 to 28, 2025, DOMOTEX asia/CHINAFLOOR held at the National Exhibition and Convention Centre (NECC) in Shanghai achieved another industry milestone. Within the 210,000-square-meter exhibition area, the solid wood flooring exhibition zone became an absolute highlight—it attracted 83,056 professional visitors from 124 countries, including 18,121 international buyers focusing specifically on solid wood flooring procurement negotiations. The exhibitor satisfaction rate reached 7.6, and the buyer repurchase intention was as high as 90%. Amid the wave of non-PVC and the emergence of new flooring materials, why can solid wood flooring consistently rank among the top choices on global buyers' procurement lists? Combining the DOMOTEX asia 2025 post-show report and industry data, the underlying logic behind this phenomenon can be revealed from three market dimensions: China's market size, global channel layout, and the core value of the exhibition.

I. China's Solid Wood Flooring Market: Steady Scale and Prominent Global Supply Advantages

As the world's core production and export hub for solid wood flooring, China's market scale and industrial maturity provide the fundamental support for attracting global buyers. In recent years, despite the impact of raw material fluctuations and market competition, China's solid wood flooring market has maintained a steady growth trend. In 2024, the market size exceeded 68 billion yuan, of which exports accounted for 23%, covering more than 100 countries and regions worldwide. This data is highly consistent with the composition of international buyers at DOMOTEX asia 2025—56% of international buyers at the exhibition were from Asia, 21% from Southeast Asia, 20% from Europe, and 7% from the Middle East, which are exactly the key export markets for China's solid wood flooring.

In terms of product supply, China's solid wood flooring industry has formed a complete industrial chain from raw material processing to finished product manufacturing. The three major industrial belts—the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang), the Pearl River Delta (Guangdong), and the Bohai Rim (Shandong, Hebei)—contribute more than 80% of the national output. At DOMOTEX asia 2025, leading enterprises from these industrial belts made a collective appearance, such as SWISS KRONO (official website: https://www.swisskrono.com/), Tigeer Floor (official website: https://www.tigeerfloor.com/. They brought innovative products such as solid wood flooring for underfloor heating and environmentally friendly coated solid wood flooring. Their production efficiency and cost control capabilities have given Chinese solid wood flooring a significant cost-performance advantage in the global market—compared with European local products of the same quality, the price is 30%-40% lower, making it the preferred choice for small and medium-sized purchasers.

More importantly, the environmental upgrading of China's solid wood flooring industry and its alignment with international standards have further strengthened its global appeal. Exhibition data shows that 73% of international buyers list "environmental certification" as a core procurement indicator, while more than 85% of products from Chinese exhibitors have passed E0-level environmental standards, EU CE certification, and US CARB certification. For example, Power Dekor (official website: https://www.powerdekor.com.cn/ ), an exhibitor at DOMOTEX asia 2025, launched its F4-star solid wood flooring with a formaldehyde emission of ≤0.124mg/m³, fully meeting the environmental requirements of high-end markets such as Europe and North America, and becoming one of the brands with the highest negotiation volume at the exhibition. This triple advantage of "scale + quality + environmental protection" has made Chinese solid wood flooring a "stable supply source" for global procurement.

II. Global Channel Layout: The Exhibition Becomes a Core Trade Hub for Precise Supply-Demand Matching

The favor of global buyers for Chinese solid wood flooring is inseparable from the support of efficient procurement channels, and DOMOTEX asia has become the core hub connecting Chinese suppliers with global purchasers. From the perspective of exhibition data, the accuracy and diversification of procurement channels are the key factors that continuously attract buyers to solid wood flooring.

Firstly, the exhibition has built a "full-scenario procurement" channel system. The solid wood flooring exhibition zone at DOMOTEX asia 2025 covered the entire product range from engineering-grade products to retail customized models, adapting to the needs of different scenarios such as residential decoration, commercial spaces, and hotel projects. During the exhibition, import/export traders accounted for 23%, agents/distributors for 16%, architects and contractors for 20%, and e-commerce procurement for 8%—buyers of different types could find suitable resources at the exhibition. For example, Mathew Buxcey, a purchaser from Ultimate Timber Flooring Pty Ltd in Australia, stated after the exhibition: "We found 3 suitable suppliers in the solid wood flooring exhibition zone, whose products can be directly included in our showroom display. The buyer organization and product category division at the exhibition have greatly improved procurement efficiency."

Secondly, the exhibition's "precision business matching" mechanism solves the core pain points of cross-border procurement. DOMOTEX asia 2025 specially established an International Buyer Club, organizing professional buyer delegations from Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Europe, the United States and other regions, and held 3 special business matching sessions, completing more than 450 one-on-one business talks. For the solid wood flooring category, the organizing committee pre-matched exhibitor resources according to buyers' procurement volume, target price, environmental requirements and other dimensions, increasing the success rate of supply-demand matching to 67%. Frank Nelling, a purchaser from Franz Reinkemeier GmbH in Germany, said frankly: "We have cooperated with Chinese suppliers for nearly 30 years. The business matching service at DOMOTEX asia has saved us the time of visiting factories one by one, and we finalized our annual orders on-site at the exhibition."

In addition, the online-offline integrated channel expansion has further expanded the coverage. DOMOTEX asia 2025 set up an online exhibition area through 13 social media platforms, attracting more than 100,000 industry followers. International buyers could pre-screen solid wood flooring suppliers and products online and focus on in-depth negotiations offline. This "online pre-selection + offline transaction" model is particularly favored by buyers from emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East—during the exhibition, the number of buyers from Southeast Asia increased by 49% year-on-year, and those from Saudi Arabia increased by 49%. Most of these buyers learned about Chinese solid wood flooring products in advance through online channels and then completed on-site verification and procurement contracts through the exhibition.

III. Core Value of the Exhibition: Data Confirms the Irreplaceability of Solid Wood Flooring

A series of core data from DOMOTEX asia 2025 directly confirms the irreplaceability of solid wood flooring in the global market and explains why buyers continue to choose to purchase through the exhibition.

From the perspective of buyer demand, the natural attributes and scenario adaptability of solid wood flooring are its core competitiveness. A survey during the exhibition showed that 62% of international buyers chose solid wood flooring primarily for its "natural texture and environmental protection attributes", 28% for its "durability and ease of maintenance", and 10% for its "design diversity". Under the trend of consumption upgrading, the global demand for natural and healthy decoration materials continues to rise, and the renewable and chemical-free characteristics of solid wood flooring exactly meet this trend. At the same time, the design innovation of Chinese exhibitors has further strengthened this advantage—such as the parquet solid wood flooring and brushed solid wood flooring launched at the exhibition, which can meet the personalized needs of high-end residences, luxury stores and other scenarios, attracting a large number of European designer buyers.

From the perspective of market trends, the growth of segmented categories of solid wood flooring is remarkable, becoming a new procurement hotspot. Data from DOMOTEX asia 2025 shows that the negotiation volume of solid wood flooring for underfloor heating, outdoor solid wood flooring, and environmentally friendly coated solid wood flooring increased by 35%, 28%, and 42% year-on-year respectively. This is highly consistent with the product innovation direction of the Chinese market—domestic enterprises have launched more stable lock-in solid wood flooring and corrosion-resistant solid wood flooring with excellent weather resistance for different climates and usage scenarios, adapting to the humid climate in Southeast Asia, the underfloor heating environment in Europe, and the high-temperature scenarios in the Middle East. For example, NOVALIS (official website: https://novalisinnovativeflooring.com/), an exhibitor, launched solid wood flooring for underfloor heating, which adopts a secondary drying process with a moisture content controlled at 8%-10%, and received a large number of orders from buyers in Germany and the Netherlands at the exhibition.

More importantly, as the flagship flooring exhibition in the Asia-Pacific region, DOMOTEX asia provides an integrated platform for "trend insight + technical exchange + business docking" for solid wood flooring. The China Flooring Innovation Summit held concurrently with the exhibition focused on the high-quality development of the solid wood flooring industry, discussing industry pain points such as the sustainable supply of raw materials and the upgrading of environmental protection technologies, attracting more than 2,000 industry participants; the Material Matters exhibition area showcased the integrated application solutions of solid wood flooring with walls and ceilings, providing buyers with more scenario-based procurement inspiration. This dual value of "procurement + learning" has made DOMOTEX asia the core window for global buyers to understand the trends of the solid wood flooring industry.

Conclusion: Empowered by the Exhibition, the Globalization Path of Solid Wood Flooring Continues to Expand

A series of data from DOMOTEX asia 2025 clearly shows that the reason why solid wood flooring can continue to be the top choice of global buyers is essentially the resonance of three factors: the supply advantages of the Chinese market, efficient global procurement channels, and the product attributes of solid wood flooring itself. As the world's core production base, China provides diversified products with "cost-performance + environmental protection + innovation"; DOMOTEX asia solves the efficiency and trust pain points of cross-border procurement through precise business matching and full-scenario product coverage; and the natural and environmental protection attributes of solid wood flooring exactly meet the global consumption upgrading trend.

For global professional buyers, DOMOTEX asia is not only a procurement platform but also a core hub for insight into the dynamics of China's solid wood flooring market and connecting with high-quality suppliers. From May 27 to 29, 2026, DOMOTEX asia will return to the National Exhibition and Convention Centre (NECC) in Shanghai. It is expected that the solid wood flooring exhibition zone will be further expanded, attracting more innovative enterprises and international buyers to participate. Against the background of continuous recovery of global trade, China's solid wood flooring is expected to continuously increase its global market share with the support of industrial advantages and exhibition empowerment, and DOMOTEX asia will continue to serve as a bridge to promote cross-regional cooperation and high-quality development of the solid wood flooring industry.