“2017 was a very good year, we will exceed the 2007 sales, the highest until then,” said to AFP Gilles Mouchiroud, president of the Federation of swimming pool professionals (FPP). “And we will also pass the milestone of two million swimming pools in France”, he said happily. At the end of September, in the course of the twelve months, the turnover of the sector amounted to 2.1 billion euros (+11%), after $ 1.9 billion in 2016, according to figures compiled by the FPP. Federation and the table in 2017 on 45.810 sales of basins buried and 56.000 off the ground, or a total of 101.810 pools sold on the national territory, a figure which is higher by 20.2%.
The first market of Europe has benefited this year from a housing construction dynamics, of credit rate low and the weather is favourable. The sector has, for example, string together two very good years. “We have a climate of confidence good enough, the level of housing starts of individual houses is very correct, and the French like to spend pleasant moments around the water,” sums up Mr. Mouchiroud.
In addition, the French have frequently taken advantage of credit rates very low all the year 2017 – they moved to the vicinity of 1.55% on average in the October – to renegotiate their mortgages, “which allowed them to integrate a budget pool”, he reports.
The pool “democratised”
And the pool has “democratized”, he said: if it cost 35 to 45,000 euros to provide a basin ten years ago, the budget has now fallen to 18,000 euros for the first prize of the basins buried – and even 6-to 7.000 euros for swimming pools in kit. This fall in prices is also due to the reduction of the size of the pools: the most sold today are 45 m2, compared to 130 m2 in 2007. “Also, our companies have made an effort in research and development has allowed the basins to be more comfortable and suited to the demand of the consumers”, said Mr. Mouchiroud. Less chemical, their maintenance is now done at 80% by a mechanical treatment, and to 20% with products such as chlorine, according to the federation. There are a number of alternatives to the addition of chlorine, such as systems of electrolysis or of the products of processing to the active oxygen, bromine, ozone, UV.
Home automation promises to reduce even further the energy consumption of the equipment as well as the dosing of treatment products, based on parameters such as the temperature of the water and number of bathers. And if the order books have a tendency to “settle a bit”, said Mr. Mouchiroud, the sector which represents 50,000 jobs (half indirect: waterproofing, hydraulic, electric) generates around 20% of its activity at the international, hopes to maintain a good momentum next year.
After two years of growth to two digits, the pool professionals, recruit staff and are constantly looking for apprentices, further reports the president of the FPP, which has some 1,100 members, representing half of the companies in the sector. All that in addition to sales of pools new, the swimming pool renovation existing will represent, in the years to come, “an axis of development that is very strong, and is expected to generate about a quarter of the activity. “Thanks to new materials and lighting in leds, we are upgrading pools which have 15 or 20 years, and the demand is high,” says Mr. Mouchiroud.
“We need to train more young people,” he concludes. Only 80 young people get the patent professional technician specialist “Trades of the Pool” each year.
(with AFP)
