In 2025, the home furnishing industry's overseas expansion enters a new stage of strategic deep cultivation. The sector is breaking through its traditional dependence on European and American markets and opening new growth curves in emerging regions such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. At the same time, enterprises are accelerating the transformation from contract manufacturing abroad to brand-based globalization. Beijing Business Today learned that leading companies are continuing to speed up their global layouts. In November, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oriental Yuhong planned to invest about RMB 144 million of its own funds to acquire a 60 percent stake in Brazil's Novakem. In the same month, Zhongyuan Home planned to invest 16 million US dollars to build a production base in Vietnam. In September, Kuka Home planned to invest RMB 1.124 billion in an overseas production base in the Kendal Industrial Park, Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. In May, Aili Home's factory in Mexico officially went into production.

Industry insiders said that 2025 is a crucial year for home furnishing globalization to shift from scale expansion to quality improvement. Deep cultivation in emerging markets and brand transformation are helping Chinese home furnishing enterprises move from supply chain advantage to value advantage. In the future, only by taking technological innovation as the core and localized operation as the support can companies build long-term barriers in global market competition.

Diversified Overseas Layout

In 2025, Chinese home furnishing enterprises entered a period of intensive multi-regional and full-chain overseas deployment. From deeper penetration in Southeast Asia to brand-new breakthroughs in Latin America, and from localized production bases to global expansion of brand stores, leading enterprises are promoting globalization through diversified layouts.

With geographic advantages and strong consumption-upgrade potential, Southeast Asia has become the core hub of overseas expansion for home furnishing enterprises. In 2025, Kuka Home pursued a dual-line layout in Southeast Asia. After the new factory in Binh Duong, Vietnam, went into production, it formed a complementary relationship with the factory in Binh Phuoc and focused on the North American electric sofa market, while the Indonesia project was located in the Kendal Industrial Park in Semarang, Central Java.

Kuka Home stated that its overseas layout is intended to implement its internationalization strategy and expand the depth and breadth of market coverage. In the future, the company will register a wholly owned or controlled project company with independent legal person status in Indonesia to serve as the operating entity of the project.

Jiangxin Home announced an investment of RMB 150 million to build an intelligent furniture production base in Cambodia. After completion, the project will have annual production capacity for 200,000 sets of intelligent electric sofas, 100,000 sets of intelligent electric beds, and 200,000 sets of accessories for intelligent electric sofas and beds.

Jiangxin Home said the project will help increase product sales, revenue, and operating profit, thereby enhancing the overall competitiveness of the listed company. It will better satisfy overseas market demand and further strengthen the company's ability to respond to international trade barriers, which is highly meaningful for improving competitiveness and expanding market share.

According to Beijing Business Today's incomplete review, many home furnishing enterprises including GoldenHome, Zhongyuan Home, and Lin's Home made overseas moves in 2025. Market diversification has become the core strategy for going global, with enterprises shifting from dependence on Europe and the United States toward blossoming across multiple markets worldwide.

Qin Zhanxue, president of the China Building Materials Circulation Association, said that as a national industry organization leading sector development, the association in recent years has tried an approach of going abroad through exhibitions plus building overseas warehouses along Belt and Road nodes. This helps break through the external circulation bottleneck and guides China's building materials and home furnishing industry from product globalization to brand globalization and ultimately to supply-chain globalization.

Deep Cultivation of Local Markets

Behind the wave of home furnishing enterprises going abroad is the real pull of overseas revenue growth and the strong support released by localized layout efficiency. As overseas deployment gradually lands, a multidimensional model of products, manufacturing, and supply chain has taken shape, and overseas markets have become an earnings stabilizer for some enterprises.

From the performance side, MLILY achieved overseas store sales revenue of RMB 1.515 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, up 2.09 percent year on year, while overseas online sales revenue reached RMB 1.664 billion, up 76.36 percent. ZBOM Home achieved overseas revenue of RMB 217 million in the first three quarters, up 65.00 percent. In addition, DeRUCCI's overseas revenue in the first half rose 73.97 percent year on year, Kin Long Hardware's overseas revenue rose 30.75 percent, Holike's rose 25.99 percent, and Sophie's export revenue rose 39.49 percent.

Digital business innovation consultant Tang Xingtong said that overseas market growth for home furnishing enterprises is a dividend created by global supply-demand mismatch. Europe and the United States have supply-chain gaps, the middle class is rising in Southeast Asia and other regions, and Chinese home furnishing enterprises have strong advantages in cost efficiency, supply-chain completeness, and flexible manufacturing, which has led to short-term bursts of incremental growth.

In fact, the growth in overseas revenue is supported by localized layout. GoldenHome has implemented a one-country-one-strategy approach, developing products and channels according to different countries. From Siyang in China to the United States, GoldenHome adopted a model of replicating and transplanting the domestic integrated factory line, fully considering talent export, technology transfer difficulties, and solutions to cultural differences, thereby better ensuring capacity operation at overseas factory lines. In overseas store operations, Lin's Home has not only reproduced domestic spatial aesthetics concepts but also built localized operations teams and provided refined full-chain support so that stores can integrate rapidly into local markets. ZBOM Home opened its first dealer-exclusive store in Kenya, officially entering the African market, and simultaneously brought its mature integrated whole-home solution to the region, accurately matching high-quality home furnishing demand created by the rise of the local middle class.

Li Jie, vice president of Easyhome Group, said that the overseas expansion of home furnishing enterprises has already entered a new stage, moving from product globalization to model globalization and even ecosystem globalization. China's supply-chain advantages now strongly match the demand for brand globalization, policy guidance has created favorable opportunities, and localized layout is the key to success. Enterprises need to move beyond simply copying domestic models and realize two-way circulation of global resources. Only by building a globally coordinated industrial ecosystem through supply-chain integration, digital empowerment, and localized service can they gain a firm foothold in global market competition.

Opportunities and Challenges Coexist

Although many home furnishing enterprises are now looking to overseas markets and placing one move after another, establishing real brand recognition in global markets remains a major challenge for Chinese home furnishing companies. In fact, the old contract manufacturing model that relied on cost advantage has reached its ceiling in an era that values personalization and service experience. In 2025, Chinese home furnishing enterprises are undergoing a role transformation from backstage manufacturers in the global industrial chain to front-stage brand operators.

Tang Xingtong said that contract manufacturing sells hands, while brand globalization sells brains. This means the industry is upgrading from being a global hired worker to becoming a player in the global value chain. Brand globalization is not simply translating Chinese advertising into English, but reconstructing the minds of global users.

For domestic enterprises, the first major obstacle is the continuous upgrading of overseas compliance barriers. In Europe and the United States, the home furnishing industry mainly faces standards such as the STURDY anti-tip law, CPSIA regulations for children's furniture, the 16 CFR flammability standard, the EU REACH regulation, and British BS EN standards.

Beijing Business Today learned that in October this year, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of a drawer cabinet made in China. The recalled product, an AOWOS 12-drawer cabinet, violated the mandatory requirements of the STURDY Act. This shows how important compliance is for Chinese home furnishing enterprises seeking to deepen their presence in foreign markets.

In fact, besides compliance barriers, cultural differences and channel barriers are also major difficulties facing Chinese home furnishing brands overseas. Tang Xingtong further said that enterprises should first insist on dual-wheel drive through localized teams and digital channels. They must understand cultural differences and also master cross-border e-commerce and social media matrix operations. Second, they should take design as the core competitiveness, not by simply moving domestic styles abroad, but by pursuing localized design plus Chinese manufacturing. Finally, they should use digital supply chains to reversely drive brand building, turning small batches, multiple styles, and rapid response into differentiated advantages.

Although Chinese home furnishing enterprises have greatly improved product quality and design standards, many international consumers still know too little about Chinese home furnishing brands. Wang Jianguo, co-founder of Xinshe Huixuegu and an expert in community and consumer-segment operation strategy and practice, further said that for listed companies capable of going global, enterprises should actively adjust market direction. Especially for leading companies in segmented industries, they should proactively adjust strategic layout. When going abroad, enterprises need to develop markets more precisely, more specifically, more professionally, more reasonably, and in a more targeted way.

Source: Beijing Business Today