Fewer Mattresses Are Being Sold, So Why Might More Polyurethane Be Used?-1

From "How Many Mattresses Are Sold" to "How Much Material Is Used in Each Mattress"

The mattress industry is showing a change worth watching:

Export volume has not increased significantly and even declined at one point, while the weight per mattress has continued to rise.

This means that when assessing the impact of mattresses on polyurethane demand, it is not enough to look only at how many mattresses are sold; we also need to look at how much material is used in each mattress.

Note: This article uses export data under HS 94042100 in customs statistics, covering "mattresses of cellular rubber or plastics, whether or not covered." This category is not equivalent to all mattresses, nor can it directly identify the polyurethane content, but it can be used to observe changes in the quantity, weight, and structure of exported foam mattress products.

Mattress Volumes Remain Broadly Stable While Unit Weight Rises Significantly

To avoid mixing full-year data with partial-year data, we first compare the January–July figures for the three years:

In the first seven months of 2026, export volume increased by about 3.5% compared with the same period in 2025, while export weight rose by 18.6%; compared with the same period in 2024, export volume was still about 3% lower, but weight was about 17.9% higher.

The statistically recorded average weight per mattress rose from 4.60 kg in 2024 to 5.59 kg in 2026, an increase of about 21.6% over two years.

The signal from this set of data is clear:

Mattress exports have not expanded significantly, but material input per unit is increasing.

For the polyurethane value chain, this is more meaningful than simply looking at the number of mattresses. Upstream suppliers sell TDI, polyether polyols, and other chemical raw materials; ultimately, what matters is not "how many mattresses" but "how many kilograms of foam are used in each mattress."