Household Products: World Trade Performance in the First Half of 2025

Moderately positive dynamics, but with a recent slowdown and significant differences across sectors

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Uncertainty Conjuncture Home items Global economic trends
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World trade data, recently updated to the second quarter of 2025 and available in the Quarterly World Trade Datamart, highlight a slowdown in international sales of Household Products1, measured at constant prices2: after a moderately expansive phase in 2024 (+7.6%) and a first quarter of this year (+4.2%), in the April-June 2025 period, global exports in the sector saw a substantial halt in growth (-0.2%).
In the first half of the year, the trend in global exports of Household Products is still positive (+1.9% at constant prices), but slowing compared to the 2024 average.

The international outlook is quite diverse
at the level of individual sectors of the Household Products

However, differences in global trade performance appear significant within the sector, at the individual sector level, as highlighted in the table below.

World Exports of Household Products:
% Year-over-Year changes at constant prices

% Y-o-Y changes at constant prices
Sector Y2024 Q1-2025 Q2-2025E H1-2025E
Home Appliances +10.4% +13.2% + 2.2% + 7.4%
Consumer Electronics + 6.4% + 0.5% + 0.0% + 0.2%
Furniture and Furnishing elements + 6.9% - 0.3% - 2.1% - 1.2%
Lighting Technology - 2.3% +12.0% - 2.7% + 3.9%
Home Textiles +12.4% + 7.8% + 1.2% + 4.3%
Glasses and Tableware + 9.6% + 1.7% - 0.5% + 0.5%
Pots and Pans +14.3% - 1.9% - 0.9% - 1.3%
Carpets, Tapestries and Wallpaper + 7.4% + 0.0% - 1.8% - 0.9%
Cutlery +13.4% - 0.2% + 5.2% + 2.5%
General household items + 7.5% - 4.4% - 2.8% - 3.6%
TOTAL + 7.6% + 4.2% - 0.2% + 1.9%
Source: ExportPlanning - Data - Quarterly Trade Data, World Trade Datamart

In particular, analyzing global exports of Household Products in the first half of the year, rather diverse trends emerge at a sector level:

  • the following sectors are in (also broadly) positive territory:
    • Home Appliances3: although also slowing in the most recent quarter, global exports in the sector recorded a Year-over-Year growth (measured at constant prices) of +7.4% in the first half of 2025, confirming the expansionary phase found in 2024 (+10.4% Y-o-Y compared to 2023);
    • Home Textiles4: in the first half of the year, global exports in the sector, despite the recent slowdown (+1.2% Year-over-Year in Q2-2025, at constant prices, after +7.8% in Q1-2025), recorded a positive result (+4.3% Y-o-Y), although less favorable than the average for 2024 (+12.4% compared to 2023);
    • Lighting Technology5: the first six months of the year show an overall positive result for exports in the sector (+3.9% Year-over-Year, at constant prices), but data from the most recent quarter (-2.7% Y-o-Y) indicate a significant disruption to growth;
    • Cutlery6: unlike the previous sectors, the recent quarter showed a strengthening of the Year-over-Year growth of global exports in the sector (+5.2% at constant prices), leading to a moderately positive result for the first half of the year (+2.5% Y-o-Y), albeit significantly slower than the 2024 average (+13.4% compared to 2023);
  • slowing down compared to 2024 (but still with weak growth dynamics) are the following sectors:
    • Consumer Electronics7: the first half of the year saw a slowdown in the growth experienced during 2024 (+6.4% compared to 2023, measured at constant prices) from global exports of the sector, which recorded a Year-over-Year increase of just 0.2 percentage points in the period January-June 2025;
    • Glasses and Tableware8: the progressive slowdown in global exports of the sector, which occurred in the first two quarters of the year, led to a result of limited growth (+0.5% compared to the first half of last year, measured at constant prices), after a 2024 marked by significantly expansionary dynamics (+9.6% compared to 2023);
  • finally, the following sectors are slowing down and already in negative territory:
    • Furniture and Furnishing elements9: the decline seen in the most recent quarter (-2.1% Year-over-Year, at constant prices) led global exports in the sector to close the first half of the year with a slight decline (-1.2% Y-o-Y), significantly worsening compared to the average trend for 2024 (+6.9% compared to 2023);
    • Pots and Pans10: in the first half of the year, global exports of this sector showed, measured at constant prices, a Year-over-Year reduction of 1.3 percentage points, a sharp decline compared to the average rate for 2024 (+14.3% compared to 2023);
    • Carpets, Tapestries, and Wallpaper11: the decline in the most recent quarter (-1.8% Year-over-Year at constant prices) led global exports in the sector to close the first half of 2025 in slight negative territory (-0.9%), a marked slowdown compared to the 2024 average (+7.4% compared to 2023);
    • General household items12: after an expansionary 2024 (+7.4% at constant prices compared to 2023), global exports in the sector showed a significant downturn in the first half of the year, with an overall decline of 3.6 percentage points compared to the corresponding period in 2024.

The importance of monitoring market conditions
at a "product-specific" level

World trade data for the first half of the year point to moderately growing overall conditions for the Household Products, but with recent deterioration in performance.
The high degree of heterogeneity in results across sectors highlights, for an exporting company, the strategic utility of continuously monitoring market conditions, both in terms of demand and the dynamics of its main competitors for its product/strategic business area, in order to best support its international positioning.

With the aim of enabling constant monitoring of its foreign markets at a "product-specific" level, ExportPlanning provides Market Insights, a series of "on-demand" information services, specifically designed to support the market intelligence and budgeting processes of exporting companies.

1) See here the related description table.
2) The measure Quantities at constant prices (Q). This measure includes a deflation operation, in which the historical series of monetary values (V) has been transformed into an analogous series of values expressed at constant prices, with a reference to a given year, known as the base year. For a description of the methodology applied, please refer to Methodological Note on the Quarterly World Trade Datamart.
3) See here the related description table.
4) See here the related description table.
5) See here the related description table.
6) See here the related description table.
7) See here the related description table.
8) See here the related description table.
9) See here the related description table.
10) See here the related description table.
11) See here the related description table.
12) See here the related description table.