Market Report 29.08.2025

What happened this week

In Europe, the number of potential discussion partners has now slowly begun to increase again. However, the discussions are not necessarily yielding any particularly big news or the insights so many had hoped for regarding an improved order situation in the leather industry. It is simply still too early for that, and it remains unclear why many are seriously expecting new and hard facts to actually be available before mid-October. From this perspective, the situation is neither positive nor negative, and we are ultimately in the same position as we were before the holidays began. However, it remains true that no one, either at home or abroad, really expects leather demand to rise beyond the seasonal recovery in the coming months. Too many uncertainties are weighing on the situation, and the only thing that almost every leather manufacturer is saying at the moment is that almost all leather buyers are expecting lower prices. The Chamber may understand this desire, but leather buyers should also slowly come to realise that, at a certain point, the price of leather, like the main price, can no longer really be pushed down. Of course, it may still be possible to force someone to sell below cost, but in the long run, no one will be happy about it. In addition to the question of the sheer volume of leather orders, the mix of items and ranges is also a major concern. At the end of the day, a tanner has to get all the ranges out of the house somehow and at some point. In our opinion, this has not been working for quite some time now. So there is a lot that needs to be worked on and possibly re-sorted for the new season after the holidays. It is not only the supply and demand parameters that are currently influencing business, but also the diverse geopolitical influences and the erratic customs policy of the American government, which make truly fact-based analyses of the market almost impossible at present. So all we can do is take the impressions from Asia with us next week and then probably carry on with business as usual until the trade fair in Milan. Then, at some point, the moment will come when the realities will probably become apparent. In business terms, it was another relatively quiet week, limited almost exclusively to the cautious and virtually unchanged continuation of existing supply contracts in Europe.