Exclusive Research: Sales up 6.6% for Top 100 in 2006

HIGH POINT — The nation's largest furniture stores posted a 6.6% increase in sales last year, bettering all furniture stores as a whole during the toughest business climate in years.
Click here to order an electronic copy of F/T's Top 100 U.S. Furniture Stores U.S. furniture, bedding and accessories sales for FurnitureToday’s 27th annual Top 100 grew to $31.5 billion from nearly $29.5 billion for the same companies last year. The growth rate topped that of all furniture stores, which posted a 6% gain to $63.9 billion, but the performance wasn’t nearly as blistering as the 8.3% sales increase for the previous year’s Top 100 companies. That beat the 4.1% gain for all furniture stores in 2005 by a wide margin.


This year’s Top 100 has a new No. 1 in Ashley Furniture HomeStores, the dedicated store network that’s on a torrid growth path with a 32.8% increase in sales to $2.1 billion — the first chain to top $2 billion — at nearly 300 stores by the end of the year. It supplanted No. 2 Rooms To Go, which had held the top spot for five consecutive years and grew a more-than-respectable 10% this year to $1.76 billion.
The Top 100 as a whole didn’t gain any market share, holding steady at 55% — while last year’s group of Top 100 stores added two percentage points to grab a 56% market share from 54% the previous year. This year’s holding pattern came despite opening more stores (a net 297 units) than last year’s group.
The results support a number of industry trends, including continuing consolidation, with the largest players getting even stronger, general tough economic times for industry with few signs of a letup and the relentless march of alternative distribution channels — the Costcos and Wal-Marts of the world who must be snatching volume lost by smaller independents and not accounted for by big furniture stores.