MILAN — Minimalism and sustainability don’t bode well for the lighting sector, but an uptick in contract business in booming markets like India and retail partnerships are expected to ignite some growth over the next year.
According to Statista, revenues generated by the Lamps & Lighting market in 2025 are expected to amount to $86.62 billion. It is projected that the market will experience an annual growth rate of 3.67 percent between 2025 and 2029. In comparison to other countries worldwide, the U.S. leads in terms of revenue generation, with $33 billion in 2025, although it remains unclear how U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes might dim that outlook as the year progresses.
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Carlo Urbinati, who is also president and chief executive officer of Italian lighting house Foscarini and president of lighting association Assoluce, told WWD he expects an improvement in 2025.
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“After a prolonged period of market contraction, there is potential for a rebound. We are noticing some signs of renewed interest, possibly due to retailers consolidating their partnerships with select brands — Foscarini being among them,” Urbinati said.
Foscarini, along with furniture brands Minotti, Porro and Molteni&C, Visionnaire and design firm Kartell, was among the top names chosen to take part in 2024’s unique celebration of Italian home design hosted on the sixth floor of Bloomingdale’s 59th Street flagship in Manhattan as part of the retailer’s “From Italy, With Love” country promotion.
Compared to furniture, lighting is easily shipped and has seen its sales buoyed by e-commerce channels since the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“E-commerce has reaffirmed itself as a borderless channel, effectively capturing consumer demand across different markets. It is a segment that has experienced significant growth and continues to be a key driver of our business,” Urbinati noted, adding that for Foscarini, online sales currently represent about 25 percent of its total revenue, which he expects will only rise in 2025.
As he approaches the 32nd edition of the Euroluce, the international lighting biennial, Urbinati said organizers are doing things differently to spark more interest in the Italian sector, which generates only $1.62 billion of the global total, despite having some of the world’s most upscale names — Flos, Artemide and FontanaArte among them.
The fair, which runs alongside Salone del Mobile.Milano from Tuesday to Sunday, is expected to start with a serious “wow” factor: American director Robert Wilson is expected to unveil a showcase around one of Michelangelo’s last, rarely seen, works, the Pietà Rondanini.
About 300 exhibitors will unveil their latest designs at Rho Fiera around a concept by Beppe Finessi and designed by the Formafantasma studio. In addition, Urbinati said this year, organizers wanted to highlight the multidisciplinary voices that are altering lighting as we know it. More than 20 international speakers, including lighting designers, architects, artists, scenographers, scientists, anthropologists, astronomers and psychologists will be featured at the Forest of Space Arena, designed by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. These speakers include unexpected names like Stefano Mancuso, a pioneer in plant neurobiology, and Piero Benvenuti, professor emeritus of astrophysics at the University of Padua.
European, particularly Italian, design retail spaces are on the rise and opening up worldwide and in second-tier cities like Scottsdale, Ariz. A notable uptick in openings has been noticed in cities like Riyadh, Dubai and Mumbai as the design community rushes to take advantage of the wave of new construction projects in those cities that were halted during the pandemic.
In Riyadh, for example, Italian design houses like Giorgetti and Boffi|DePadova are expected to open there in the near term, with the latter’s slated for 2026.
The Middle East is currently one of the most dynamic regions for the lighting industry. As for Foscarini, we have seen particularly strong performance in Japan and Italy, Urbinati said.
Consolidation is also taking the market by storm. Foscarini purchased 90 percent of famed German lighting designer Ingo Maurer’s business in 2022. The plan at the time was to revitalize the name in the North American market and further penetrate Asia and Europe with the designs of Ingo Maurer GmbH. The brand will showcase its pieces under Foscarini’s at Euroluce for the first time.
In a surprise move, Nemo Group, owned by Milan-based lighting entrepreneur Federico Palazzari, added two crown jewels to its growing design hub of brands with the acquisitions of lighting-maker FontanaArte and Driade, its first furniture property. The fate of the Flos B&B Italia group also remains uncertain, after it was reported by WWD that the company was entertaining informal offers for the furniture business. Flos B&B Italia group owns Flos, its flagship brand, as well as historic Danish firm Louis Poulsen.
Looking ahead, main challenges include creating avenues for growth in China, where the market has been crippled by the ongoing real estate slowdown and lackluster consumer confidence.
“The Chinese market is undergoing a particularly challenging phase, with economic fluctuations and structural transformations impacting demand,” he said.
Other challenges include evolving habits and the need to bring decorative lighting back into focus, reaffirming its role in contemporary interiors. “Today, many interior projects aim to conceal the light source, prioritizing technical efficiency over expressive presence. Foscarini, however, remains committed to a decorative approach — our lamps are not just sources of light, but defining elements of space, adding character and depth both when illuminated and when off,” Urbinati said.
Foscarini has been working on highlighting the ways in which lighting personalizes environments, making them feel like home with the goal to create atmosphere, enrich spatial perception and assert a strong, distinctive identity, leaving a lasting impression.
At Euroluce, the Veneto-based firm will unveil an exploration into the origins and future of the chandelier in a contemporary design language. To achieve this, they collaborated with designers of distinct creative identities: Italy’s Dordoni Studio, father-and-son duo Alberto and Francesco Meda, as well as Francesca Lanzavecchia.
Foscarini was founded in 1981 on the island of the glass hub of Murano but today it is based in Marcon, Italy, just outside Venice. Despite having 63 families of lamps under its umbrella, it entrusts the production of its lamps to Italian companies and suppliers with the modern vision, materials, technology and know-how to adapt to each object. After joining the firm, Urbinati propelled the company into a modern age both in terms of creative vision and materials by steering it away from using Murano glass in 1992 with Italian designer Ferruccio Laviani’s first lamp, Orbital, made using industrial glass.