LVT Report: The latest stage in the development of residential LVT positions the industry for healthier, more balanced growth – April 2025

By Darius Helm

Recent developments in and around the LVT market seem to indicate the transition to a crucial new stage in the development of this product category. Dominated on the residential side by SPC for nearly a decade, over the last year or so, the category has reached out like an octopus in every direction-toward neighboring product categories, across the aisle to commercial constructions, to the past for earlier iterations, into the future for new materials and compositions, and deeper into current programs for more robust expressions of existing products-all in an effort to orient toward consumers’ shifting priorities.

On a practical level, this has meant the introduction of thicker SPC, often with more bells and whistles and enhanced cores; new WPC programs, in some cases with boards as thick as traditional solid hardwood; the addition of hybrid products, including laminate hybrids-and some suppliers have also added straight laminate programs; beefy looselay vinyl more typically seen in the commercial market; and strengthening demand for gluedown flex LVT, particularly at the lower end-2mm products with 6 mil wearlayers-in the competitive multifamily market.

While other factors have played a role, much of the spark for this new diversity in LVT product offerings comes courtesy of entry-level Asian imports of substandard SPC. A wave of product failures of every color-with delamination and locking system failures among the more prominent, largely due to poor material compositions, too much filler and the like-hobbled the momentum of SPC and shifted the story from a focus on volume to a front-and-center emphasis on quality and performance, on showcasing LVT at its best, including better compositions, improved visuals and more features.

At the same time, demand has weakened, with the post-pandemic slump combining with high inflation and interest rates to hold back flooring growth. As is so often the case in modern times, wealthier Americans fared best, and this has also helped pave the way for the development of middle to higher-end residential LVT products.

THE MANUFACTURING LANDSCAPE
In the midst of all this, another significant development has been the investment in U.S. LVT facilities. Existing tariffs, increased tariffs and the threat of tariffs against products from China and possibly against products from its neighbors to the south and west-Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and India-could help drive increased investment in domestic capacity. Right now, most of what’s being produced domestically is the meat of the market, 4mm and 5mm SPC with painted bevels. With few exceptions, including, most notably, Engineered Floors and CFL with their Hymmen direct digital printing and embossing technologies-and CFL just announced plans to make pressed bevels at its Georgia facility-all of the enhanced products come out of Asia, led by China and by similar high-labor, large-scale operations in the aforementioned neighboring countries, which also have a lock on the low end of the market. And there are other significant Asian producers not as closely tied to China, like South Korea and Japan, that also sell to the U.S. market, though they are more focused on commercial-grade flex LVT.

The question is the degree to which U.S. production can expand to compete at the higher and lower end. Better service and faster turnaround are legitimate market differentiators, but it is price and variety that are the key engines driving resilient business.

Industry experts report that there is market saturation in the import-driven U.S. rigid core market, and most domestic manufacturers are not producing to capacity. Most estimates currently show U.S. production accounting for 10% to 15% of U.S. consumption. New tariffs could shift more demand stateside, but it’s going to be an uphill battle to compete at the high end. And at entry level, Asian operations have daunting, some say insurmountable, advantages-massive facilities, lower construction costs, much lower labor costs and much more affordable raw material prices.

Nevertheless, U.S. firms see the value of offering domestically made products. At Surfaces 2025, it was a central theme for many exhibitors. Those that don’t have their own facilities for residential LVT lean on the handful of producers in the U.S. with big OEM businesses, including CFL, Wellmade, Huali, Novalis, Nox and United Surfaces Solutions.

With the exception of Nox, which makes flex LVT, these firms all produce SPC. And that’s also true of the branded domestic rigid LVT manufacturers, like Shaw, Mohawk, Engineered Floors and MSI. In fact, the only domestic producers of WPC are HMTX at its Pittston, Pennsylvania facility, whose production is focused on the home centers, and Bossen New Materials Corporation, the Chinese firm that purchased Mannington’s Calhoun, Georgia WPC operation last year. Because SPC is produced on a single continuous line, it takes much less time and money to build an SPC facility compared to one for WPC, whose manufacture requires a multi-step process.

A DECADE OF GROWTH
Before the introduction of rigid core products by US Floors in 2013, flex LVT was already the fastest-growing hard surface flooring in the U.S. market, even as the resilient category itself was losing ground due to reduced demand for sheet goods and VCT. In 2014, with resilient’s share of the flooring market falling below 11%, LVT sales were about $850 million, up by double digits and representing about 39% of the resilient category. By 2015, rigid LVT had started to impact the numbers, and resilient flooring’s marketshare grew to 11.6%, then to 14.7% in 2016, 16.6% in 2017. Fast forward to 2024, resilient’s marketshare is now at about 30% with preliminary estimated revenues of a little over $7.4 billion, of which 85%, or $6.3 billion, is LVT, according to Market Insights. And rigid core, accounting for 60% of LVT, clocks in at around $3.8 billion.

So, from zero to $3.8 billion in a decade. Back then, Coretec set the standard with its higher-end WPC, but over the next few years, the market quickly swung toward SPC, which was thinner, denser, easier to produce and more affordable. At the same time, there were innovations in the mid to higher end-larger formats, different densities, various cushioned backings. Some new cores were developed. The most prominent, using magnesium dioxide, seems to have about run its course. The last few years have seen advances in edge treatments, digital printing and installation options like chevrons and herringbones.

Despite these product enhancements bolstering the middle and higher end, the bulk of the business was at the low end. With Chinese manufacturers jumping into the market at a breathless pace and-after the first round of tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, a wave of facilities coming online in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand-commoditization began to take hold.
Unsurprisingly, some Asian manufacturers pushed it too far-went as thin as they could, used too much filler or poor filler content and generally cut corners to maximize profits. The product failures that followed amid the slowdown in U.S. residential demand led to a reduced pace at the low end.

While those SPC problems may have slowed the relentless march toward commoditization, they also tainted the category a bit. “Guilt by association sucks,” says Russ Rogg, president of HMTX’s Metroflor brand, noting that the very low end has been disrupted and those thinner products, generally those less than 3.5mm, are mostly gone. “Now, especially in the past 18 months, we’re seeing a shift back to WPC.” HMTX is among the many resilient manufacturers that have approached the 2025 market for rigid-core products with a new focus on the development of WPC products.

PRODUCER DIVERSIFICATION
At this year’s Surfaces show, there was greater diversity in LVT than ever before. Most surprising was how many exhibitors showed looselay LVT, a product developed for the commercial market. And rigid core products were thicker than ever. Both Southwind and Shaw showcased 3/4” (19mm) WPC, and IFC was close behind at 15mm. There were SPC products as thick as WPC. Many firms showcased convincing bevel and grout technologies as well as digital printing with in-register embossing, either direct or with films. Some firms offered rigid core products made with alternative synthetic materials, while others showcased laminate hybrids.

Shaw is by far the biggest resilient player in the U.S. market, with its meteoric rise mostly driven by its acquisition of US Floors in late 2016, which followed on the heels of its $100 million investment in converting its Ringgold, Georgia area rug facility over to LVT production.

Before the acquisition, while US Floors was busy rolling out its first generation of Coretec WPC, Shaw remained focused on flex LVT. Its 2016 resilient sales were estimated at just under $400 million, and a year later, sales were already over $1 billion. In addition to adding WPC programs, the firm will soon started importing SPC, as well.

Shaw’s original strategy was to add WPC production to its Ringgold facility, but it ultimately turned out to be too onerous, and the firm changed direction. Ringgold now makes flex LVT and SPC. Toward the end of last year, the firm announced a $90 million investment in the facility, called Plant RP, including both boosting capacity and modernizing the line. Beyond its domestic production, the firm offers sourced SPC, WPC and flex LVT, along with looselay LVT. It has sold looselay through its Philadelphia Commercial mainstreet brand for several years, and this year, it introduced the construction to its Shaw Floors residential brand. Like the majority of domestic manufacturers, the bulk of its residential LVT offering is sourced.

Since it first got into the rigid core business, Shaw has hewed to a game plan of focusing on value over price, targeting the mid to higher end of the market, leveraging the reputation of its Coretec brand. It recently added a 3/4” WPC with enhanced in-register embossing to its Coretec Originals premium line, and it also unveiled a patent-pending dual bevel technology for greater realism. Both are sourced through Asian partnerships.

When rigid floors first hit the market, Norwalk, Connecticut-based HMTX, now one of the top five resilient flooring

producers in the U.S. market, offered a range of flex LVT products manufactured through Chinese partnerships. It quickly pivoted, adding WPC to both its residential and commercial brands, and it followed that with residential SPC. And now, in addition to China, it sources from Cambodia, Vietnam, South Korea and Thailand, and it has its own WPC facility in Pennsylvania, serving the home center market for now, with plans to add a line for distributor partners. Chinese production currently accounts for about 10% of its Metroflor brand’s volume.

Noting the shift back to WPC from the SPC-dominated market in the last year and a half, Rogg says, “We continue to offer both, but most of our new product development efforts and new design efforts have been directed toward WPC to support this trend.” He notes that 2025 marks its biggest WPC launch in five or six years.

Over the last few years, Rogg says that demand has begun to build for 5mm looselay flex in the residential market-mostly in multifamily-and the firm has expanded from its limited portfolio five years ago to a robust offering. Today, about half of Metroflor’s business is flex LVT, from thinner gluedown products to thicker looselays, two thirds of which goes to multifamily and the rest mostly for commercial applications.

Another market leader is New Jersey-headquartered Mannington, which was already a dominant producer of residential and commercial flex LVT before the advent of rigid core technologies. With the residential market quickly shifting from flex to rigid LVT, more of the firm’s domestic flex capacity shifted to the commercial market. By 2016, the firm had developed its first WPC, Adura Max, adding SPC within a couple of years. And in 2019, it completed construction of its WPC facility in Calhoun, Georgia.

Last year, Mannington sold its WPC operation to Bossen, a division of a large Chinese production firm. Bossen now sells WPC to Mannington, as well as to other purveyors. According to sources, Bossen’s ability to secure better PVC raw material pricing is one of the reasons that it can compete effectively-in fact, Mannington can get a better price purchasing product from Bossen than it could achieve when the firm was making its own WPC.

Like Shaw, Mannington avoids the entry-level market, focusing on higher price points. “Mannington’s latest innovations are centered around what we call ‘meaningful realism,’” says John Hammel, senior director of residential hard surfaces. This includes bevel technologies-two for wood looks (first CraftedEdge and now Sculpted Edge) and TumbledEdge for stone looks-as well as NatureForm Glaze for creating variable gloss levels within single products, and TruDetail, which allows for more unique planks per design.

Hammel adds, “Over a third of our LVT offering is made in the U.S., mostly by our own factory.” The firm’s Adura Selling System offers all of its designs in every LVT construction.

Another top-five producer in the U.S. market is Mohawk, which became a major player in resilient flooring-sheet and flex LVT-with its purchase of Belgium’s IVC in 2015. Within a year or two, it had developed its first SolidTech rigid core program, sourcing mostly WPC along with some SPC, and had begun building its domestic SPC facility; products started rolling off its Dalton, Georgia production line in 2019. As the market shifted to SPC, so too did Mohawk’s offering. According to Adam Ward, Mohawk’s vice president of resilient, by 2020 to 2021, it had entirely focused on SPC. And in 2022, Mohawk started up its SPC facility in Mexicali, Mexico.

Having come out with thicker (7mm) SPCs in 2024, this year, Mohawk re-entered the WPC market with robust 10mm and 12mm products, also thicker than its WPC offering from a few years back, in the Pergo and Karastan lines. The firm also introduced 5mm looselay LVT in 2024. Its gluedown flex offering goes mostly to multifamily, as well as through Aladdin for mainstreet and to partner retailers.

According to Ward, most of its offering still comes from manufacturing partnerships, both domestically and in Asia, though it no longer sources from China.

Mohawk also recently came out with SolidTech R, an Asia-produced PVC-free resilient tile that instead relies on the PET polymer, with high recycled content from drink bottles. And it’s worth noting that, unlike Mohawk’s recycled PET fiber, drink bottles used in SolidTech R can be colored. Scratch resistance is conveyed through a liquid-applied layer similar to melamine.

AHF Products was originally formed in 2018 from Armstrong Flooring’s hardwood operations, but in 2022, it purchased Armstrong’s vinyl flooring assets, making it look a lot like the Armstrong of old. In 2023, it acquired Crossville, a Tennessee-based porcelain tile producer. Brian Carson, who started his flooring career at Armstrong before a 12-year stint with Mohawk, was brought on in 2019 as CEO and president, and he left the firm earlier this year to take a position outside of the flooring industry. CFO Brent Emore is serving as interim CEO.

According to Jennifer Zimmerman, AHF’s chief commercial officer, 94% of the firm’s LVT is produced domestically, including SPC from a Georgia manufacturing partnership and a range of resilient tile products from its facilities in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Kankakee, Illinois. While it doesn’t make its own rigid core LVT, it does offer hefty products like Alterna, a 4mm vinyl tile with high mineral content. Another unique product is American Personality Pro, a 2mm tile cut from glass-backed sheet goods that requires no acclimation, mostly targeting multifamily. Additionally, it produces films from its facility in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania.

Also, AHF just introduced its first WPC, offered under the Robbins brand. And it’s coming out with a 4.5mm commercial looselay made at its Lancaster facility that the firm describes as much tougher than the flexible, indent-vulnerable looselays that typify the category.

Yon Hinkle, AHF’s vice president of product management, resilient, notes that the firm isn’t chasing entry-level business. “The growth we’re seeing now is in price as well as volume,” he says, adding that consumers are willing to pay for quality and service.

One of the rare manufacturers that makes most of its products from its own operations is Novalis, a China-based firm that until a few years ago made all of its LVT, including SPC, in its massive Chinese facility. In 2020, it opened its SPC facility in Dalton, Georgia, followed by a co-owned facility in Mexico, and just last year, it started up its new facility in Thailand that specializes in lightweight SPC. Its residential LVT offering includes WPC, flex LVT in gluedown and peel-and-stick formats, looselay LVT, and SPC, including its lightweight version. SPC is still the biggest part of the business.

In addition, Novalis, which also sources some products, goes to the residential market with the NovaFloor brand and to the commercial market with Ava. The firm also has a substantial private label business, including with Lowe’s and Home Depot.

Regarding tariff strategies, Steve Ehrlich, Novalis’ vice president of sales and marketing, notes, because it manufactures in Thailand, Mexico, China and the U.S., it has the ability to shift production flows to different global markets-for instance, using more product from China for European business, or product from Mexico to Canada-to navigate the shifting tariff landscape.

Novalis’ Chinese operation is where most of the innovations come from. Going forward, the firm is looking to add more innovative products to its other facilities, including its Dalton facility.

Yet another firm to introduce WPC this year is MSI, which first made its mark as a ceramic tile business before expanding to resilient flooring. The firm is currently the second biggest resilient player in the U.S. market, and resilient sales have already grown close to $1 billion. Three years ago, the Shah family, which owns MSI, purchased a rigid core facility in Cartersville, Georgia from Turkey’s RokPlank. The firm is headed up by Rajesh and Rupesh Shah, sons of founder Manu Shah, who retired two years ago.

Its Wayne Parc and Wayne Parc Reserve WPC collections are 12mm thick (10mm with a 2mm backing) with a 30 mil wearlayer. And MSI has added to its SPC line with a hefty 9mm line, with the same 30 mil protection. Called Studio, the line is made at the Cartersville facility. It also offers a PVC-free rigid core product called Shorecliffs.

“In addition to broadening our international sourcing, we’ve invested heavily in domestic manufacturing,” explains MSI merchant John McElroy.

Regarding tariffs, MSI, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, hews to a flexible sourcing model. “We source from multiple countries to hedge against global volatility, and we strategically stock across our U.S. network to ensure product availability and speed,” says McElroy, adding, “Our multi-sourcing and warehousing strategies have been tested through pandemic disruptions, trade conflicts and demand fluctuations-and they’ve consistently delivered results.”

Engineered Floors (EF), which got its start as a high-volume residential carpet mill in 2009, entered the resilient flooring market in 2018 with a couple of rigid LVT lines, and a few years ago, it started the conversion of its Seretean building in Dalton, Georgia to make SPC, adding Hymmen direct digital print and embossing in 2023, and it started rolling out product last year.

“We used to offer basic and mid-grade SPC along with vinyl gluedown options,” says Eric Ruppert, EF’s senior director of product marketing and category management. “This year we have diversified our portfolio into five different collections, headlined by our PureGrain High-Def DLVT made right here in Dalton, Georgia.” In addition to its High-Def product, the firm also offers a range of sourced products: PureGrain Endure SPC, PureGrain Comfort WPC and PureGrain Renew laminate flooring.
“About 20% of our overall SKUs are domestically produced,” Ruppert notes. “With increasing interest in domestic manufacturing and supply chain stability, our commitment to producing LVT in the USA provides a significant advantage.”

Before the advent of rigid core, Tarkett was a leader in resilient flooring in both the residential and commercial markets through a range of brands, including Johnsonite, Centiva and Nafco, but its residential profile diminished over the years-as glass-backed sheet goods lost ground-but in the last few years, Tarkett has put renewed focus on the residential market with its rebranded Tarkett Home operation.

Five years ago, Tarkett’s offering was limited to gluedown flex LVT and SPC, but it has since added FlexGen looselay LVT, a thicker ProGen SPC (6mm) called ProGen Plus and EverGen WPC with pressed bevels and in-register embossing. Also, it has expanded its InStudio flex line with new wood and stone designs.

“We know the market is saturated, so we’ve focused on differentiating our products with design innovations and incorporating advanced technology that enhances the durability of our products,” says Katie Szabo, senior product manager for LVT and laminate. The firm has also introduced a PVC-free hybrid called ReNue with 94% post-industrial wood content.

One firm unmatched in terms of sheer capacity in the U.S. is CFL, which serves the domestic market with SPC from its manufacturing campus in Calhoun, Georgia as well as from its operations in China and Vietnam. A lot of CFL’s business is OEM, but it also goes to market under the FirmFit and Audacity brands.

The firm, which recently doubled capacity at its Georgia operation, is shifting focus from its existing model of producing standard fare to a more value-added approach. Not only does it have Hymmen direct digital print and embossing machinery in Calhoun, but it’s also adding technology for pressed bevels, with more innovations to come.

One of the newest players in the residential LVT market is IFC (International Flooring Company), which was incorporated at the end of 2022, co-founded by Julian and William Dossche, sons of Piet Dossche, who pioneered the rigid core category with the Coretec brand in 2013. Most of its business is branded, but it also does some private label business with buying groups. To date, the firm has already shipped out about 500 display units as it seeks to extend its reach across the U.S.

IFC mostly sources product from Asia, as well as from two domestic producers, including Huali USA, located in Chatsworth, Georgia, which Julian Dossche ran before the creation of IFC. The firm’s focus is on the middle to higher end of the residential LVT market, ranging from 5mm (4+1) SPC to a 15mm (nominally 5/8”) WPC in a 9”x84” format.

Karndean, which is headquartered in the U.K., is a well-established purveyor of LVT to the residential and commercial markets in the U.S. According to Jenne Ross, director of product, “In 2019, we mapped out a five-year strategy that included expansion of our dual installation format offerings across price points-in other words, having every design in a collection available in both gluedown and rigid core. At that point, our Knight Tile and Van Gogh collections only offered select designs in rigid core. Today, both collections are completely dual format, as is our Art Select collection.”

The firm’s residential offering includes gluedown flex LVT, looselay LVT and rigid core products-both SPC and, as of last year, WPC under the Art Select line.

Noting that its growth trajectory has been highly focused on rigid core-both SPC and WPC-Ross notes, “Within the past year, our 30 mil Art Select collection has been super successful in renovations.”

Five or six years ago, Cali Floors’ resilient offering was entirely SPC, but during the pandemic, the firm added WPC. Just about all of its resilient offering is rigid core, except for one flex LVT line that mainly targets multifamily, mainstreet and the builder market.

The firm organizes its offering in a good/better/best format, and it also streamlines its features to simplify the selling process. For instance, its WPC and SPC offer 20 mil wearlayers and IXPE backings, and its “better” and “best” products all feature in-register embossing. Cali’s WPCs range in thickness from 12mm (10.5+1.5) to 6.5mm (5.5+1). And its SPCs go from 8mm (6+2) to its more builder focused offering at 4.7mm and 5.5mm.

The firm used to source primarily from China but has since diversified to other sources, with Chinese products now making up only a small percentage of its offering. WPC now makes up over a third of its resilient sales, and that number continues to increase.

LVT’S TRAJECTORY
After about eight years of marketshare gains, LVT’s pace slowed a bit starting in 2022 to 2023. While it’s likely that the category still has marketshare to take, its biggest gains are behind it. However, some industry experts feel that there’s still a lot of room for growth. As flooring analyst Santo Torcivia points out, rigid LVT can still squeeze some share from hardwood and laminate with its waterproof story, and it can improve its commercial performance, as well. There’s also room for the category to move up-market with added features, and to take from ceramic with tile and stone visuals. Also, simpler, less expensive installation systems could generate another wave of growth.

Many also believe LVT can continue to take share from carpet, citing new homes that are hard surface across the entire square footage, with softness entirely fulfilled by area rugs. Mind you, many in the carpet business insist that carpet has reached equilibrium, and some contend that it could be even poised for gains.

If current trends that blur the line between flooring categories continue, sooner rather than later LVT itself could become subsumed into a broader category of hard surface flooring that isn’t ceramic or hardwood, a mélange of homogeneous and heterogeneous constructions made of different polymers bound together with minerals or wood byproducts-or all of the above-to meet the demands of varied markets and applications. Advancements in digital printing could lead to more customization, endless variety.

In terms of domestic production, there’s no clear path for competing at the low end, many industry experts contend. The higher end may hold more hope. It’s worth keeping an eye on those domestic manufacturers that are currently adding enhancements to see how they fare over the next couple of years. Their progress will give a good indication of what’s achievable in the domestic manufacturing landscape.

Copyright 2025 Floor Focus 

Related Topics:Karastan, Engineered Floors, LLC, Armstrong Flooring, Mannington Mills, Shaw Industries Group, Inc., Mohawk Industries, HMTX, Novalis Innovative Flooring, Tarkett, Shaw Floors, Metroflor Luxury Vinyl Tile, AHF Products, Crossville