An elevator is a mobile device for moving people or objects along a predefined axis within a vertical structure. Elevators can be installed for two main uses: on the one hand, use on a small number of floors in public areas such as subway stations, train stations, and stores. This use faces competition from escalators, which in turn allow faster flow by reducing waiting times. On the other hand, elevators can be used where there are a large number of floors in residential and office buildings or high-rise buildings, as well as in parking lots, hotels, and hospitals. This use has less competition than escalators, since the elevator is faster (speed proportional to the height of the building) and can generally carry a large number of people.
The size of the global elevator market has been estimated at $82.29 billion in 2020, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.5 percent over the period 2021-2027.
Today, there are more than one million elevator systems in operation in Italy, making the country the second largest market in the world after China-which, however, has more than one billion people to move. However, the characteristics of the Chinese market are very different from those of Italy. In fact, China is a new high-growth market where the population is rapidly urbanizing. Therefore, the construction of multi-story buildings is accompanied by the installation of brand new elevator systems, which determine China’s primacy in this market. On the other hand, in Italy most of the revenue comes from maintenance, renovation and retrofit of existing systems.
Given the type of market developed in Italy for elevator systems, it is easy to understand why, in the country, there are more than 1,500 companies specializing in the sector, but with a total of just 23,000 employees. For the most part, these are small installers and micro-companies specializing in maintenance.