Lumber & Plywood Product Manufacturing Industry Profile

Companies in this industry manufacture and engage in sawing dimensional lumber, boards, beams, and other reconstituted wood products, as well as the use of sawmills to plane rough lumber. Major companies include divisions of Georgia-Pacific, Louisiana-Pacific, UFP Industries, and Weyerhaeuser (all based in the US), as well as Canfor and West Fraser (both based in Canada), Ilim Timber (Germany), Stora Enso (Finland), and Sumitomo Forestry (Japan).

Worldwide production of wood products in 2020 totaled about 480 million cubic meters of sawnwood, about 370 million cubic meters of wood-based panels, and about 400 million tons of paper and paperboard, according to the Forest Research Forestry Statistics. The top lumber and plywood-producing regions include Europe, Asia, and North & Central America.

About 4,300 lumber and plywood product manufacturing establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) operate in the US, generating annual revenue of about $50 billion.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand is closely tied to the level of home construction. The profitability of individual mills depends on efficient operations, because most products are commodities. Large companies enjoy economies of scale in purchasing. Small companies can often compete successfully by focusing on a local market. Sawmills can operate with only a modest investment of capital, but plywood mills require expensive equipment and therefore are usually plants with high annual volume.

The veneer, plywood, and engineered wood product segment and the sawmill segment of the industry are both concentrated: ...