Xylexpo draws more than 50K visitors

Xylexpo, the biennial world exhibition dedicated to woodworking technologies and furniture supplies, held in the Fiera Milano-Rho exhibition center, May 4-8, saw 652 exhibitors, covering a net exhibition area of about 125,000 square feet. Visitors totaled 51,480, 48% of whom came from outside Italy.
“Many exhibitors have told me about their satisfaction and the quality of visitors coming to Milan, who were actually interested in the acquisition of solutions and technology within the next few months. These businessmen did not just walk around the stands, they had a real need to update their production equipment. There were orders signed during the exhibition, something we had not seen for a long time,” said Ambrogio Delachi, president of Acimall, the Italian woodworking machinery and tools manufacturers’ association, which organizes the show through Cepra spa.
The next Xylexpo is scheduled for May 8-12, 2012, in the Fiera Milano-Rho exhibition center.

February furniture orders 13% higher than 2009

New residential furniture orders were 13 percent higher in February 2010 than 2009, according to Smith Leonard’s Furniture Insights, a monthly survey of residential furniture manufacturers and distributors.
This marked the fourth month in a row that orders were up over the previous year’s same month comparison. (October was flat, November up 10 percent, December up 12 percent and January up 4 percent.) Admittedly, all of these months were comparing to poor results in the previous year. But the good news is that we seem to have stopped the downward flow.
Shipments in February were 4 percent higher than February 2009. January shipments were 6 percent higher than January 2009, resulting in the year-to-date shipments up 5 percent over the same two months of last year. This was the third month in a row that shipments were up over the same period a year ago.