Window Sales Strongly Affected by Decline in New Construction

Overall, window sales will fall from around 15.4 million units to 14.6 million units in 2023. The strongest overall declines in window sales were recorded in the federal states of Brandenburg (-8.7%), Rhineland-Palatinate (-7.8%), as well as Schleswig-Holstein and Bremen with -7.7% each. Regions in the east fared best. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia, window sales declined by only 3.4% and 3.0% respectively. Bavaria is the German state with the highest sales, with around 3.2 million units sold, ahead of North Rhine-Westphalia with 2.8 million units sold. This is followed by Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony with 2.3 million and 1.5 million units sold, respectively, forecast for 2023. The top 10 cities account for about 17% of the window market in volume.

The decline in new construction is impacting sales in both the multi-storey residential segment and the detached and semi-detached house (EZH) segment. In the new-build EZH segment, the declines in the federal states are almost all in the double-digit range. Only Saarland is able to maintain window sales in this segment compared to 2022. 

Otherwise, the declines are all in the double-digit range. In the new multi-storey residential construction segment, Baden-Württemberg (-15.6%) and Berlin (-15.7%) and Bremen (-26.3%) show the strongest declines. The renovation sector must also expect slight declines for this year. Only three federal states (Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland) are expected to achieve positive growth in this sector in 2023.

The picture is similar in non-residential construction, with declines in both new construction (-8.3%) and renovation (-0.5%). The biggest setbacks in new construction were recorded in Schleswig-Holstein with -17.5%. Other federal states with a double-digit decline are Rhineland-Palatinate, Brandenburg and Hamburg. But the other federal states also mostly record only slightly lower declines. In the renovation sector it is Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland with a positive forecast for this year.

If you want to look for growth regions, you have to go mainly to the district level. The district of Frankenthal in the Palatinate will achieve growth of 15.6% in 2023 and thus leads the ranking ahead of Delmenhorst and Osnabrück. The negative ranking, on the other hand, is led by Wunsiedel in the Spruce Mountains with a decline of 21.5%, ahead of Altötting and Tirschenreuth.