The peak season for home decoration is approaching in 2025, and the building materials industry is undergoing a significant upgrade from ‘traditional building materials’ to ‘new materials industry’.
The National Building Materials and Home Furnishings Prosperity Index (BHI), released on October 15th, reflects market dynamics. In September 2025, the BHI was 122.93, up 12.87 points month-on-month and down 3.75 points year-on-year. Sales of large-scale building materials and home furnishings stores nationwide reached 130.838 billion yuan in September, up 23.84% month-on-month and down 8.02% year-on-year. Cumulative sales from January to September 2025 totaled 1044.801 billion yuan, down 3.75% year-on-year. September, the traditional peak season of ‘Golden September and Silver October’ propelled the national building materials and home furnishings market into its peak season, resulting in a rebound in the BHI compared to the previous month.
The national building materials and home furnishing market in September showed a steady recovery trend during the peak season. September’s suitable temperatures, adjustments and updates to local government’s trade-in subsidy policies, and the early emergence of holiday consumption effects from the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day all contributed to increased consumer spending on building materials and home furnishings, effectively releasing market demand. Sales at large-scale building materials and home furnishing stores increased by 23.84% month-on-month in September, meeting expectations.
Looking at the various sub-indices of the BHI, while the overall BHI rebounded, the ‘Manager Confidence Index’ in September was 159.64, a decrease of 3.83 points month-on-month, ranking first in terms of month-on-month decline.
However, its absolute value of 57.87 (above 50 indicates a bullish outlook, below 50 indicates a bearish outlook) still falls within the ‘bullish outlook’ range. Although this leading index has declined slightly month-on-month, the core tone of ‘bullish outlook’ remains unchanged, reflecting the resilience accumulated by enterprises in coping with difficulties and their continued confidence in the long-term development of the industry.
The sub-index with the highest month-on-month increase in September was the ‘sales capacity index’. With the arrival of the peak season for building materials and home furnishings consumption in September, coupled with the continued effect of the consumer goods trade-in policy, most enterprises launched a variety of promotional activities, forming a dual incentive model of ‘government subsidies + enterprise discounts’, effectively stimulating consumption vitality, resulting in a certain increase in customer traffic and sales in key building materials and home furnishings markets nationwide. On September 24th, six departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Natural Resources, jointly issued the “Work Plan for Stabilizing Growth in the Building Materials Industry (2025-2026),” marking a shift in industry policy from “ensuring scale” to “improving quality.” Through multi-dimensional efforts in capacity control, technological innovation, green transformation, and demand expansion, a clear path has been outlined for the building materials industry to upgrade from “traditional building materials” to a “new materials industry.” The Industry Research Department of the China Building Materials Circulation Association suggests that enterprises should seize the policy window of opportunity, accelerate structural adjustments and technological innovation, and gain a competitive edge in the new round of industrial transformation.
In the future, the upgrading and transformation of the building materials industry will continue. Enterprises need to constantly adapt to market changes and policy guidance to achieve sustainable development. At the same time, consumers can expect to obtain more high-quality and environmentally friendly building materials and home furnishing products as the market upgrades.
