Elevator Market Outlook 2030: Spring 2026 update

By Gareth Hayes, Masayuki Igarashi, Sven Siepen, Christopher Hoyes and Ralph Mair

In August 2025, Roland Berger published its first Elevator Market Outlook 2030 report. It marked the launch of a regular series that aims to track developments in the global market by region and business line, providing vital business intelligence on market value, development, growth pockets and other key indicators. Now, in Spring 2026, we are publishing the second report in the series.

The update focuses in on the key changes in the market since the first edition. In particular, we present our model’s revised growth forecasts to reflect the ever-shifting dynamics in the elevator market, which has endured a difficult period in the past few months. These highlight both the expected winners and losers in the market to 2030, by region and business line (New Equipment, Maintenance, Modernization) as well as the main areas of opportunity and risk. We also provide a deep dive into the dominant but struggling Asia Pacific (APAC) market. The key takeaways include:

• Our global market value forecast for 2030 has been revised down from USD 136 billion to USD 133 billion.
• The prolonged downturn in the Chinese market, as well as the conflict in the Middle East, are the main reasons for the softened forecast.
• Europe and South America offer the best prospects for regional growth at 5% CAGR, while the Modernization segment is the most attractive segment (7% CAGR).
• Within APAC, China is set to lose market share to South East Asia (SEA).

Declining new installations in the APAC region hit global growth expectations

The global elevator market was worth USD 110 billion in 2025, and our model predicts that it will reach a value of USD 133 billion in 2030. This represents a CAGR of around 4%, although the figure is USD 3 billion lower than we predicted in 2025. The key reason for this is our revised forecast for the APAC region. It continues to dominate the global market, but its market share of around 40% is contracting. This is driven by a downturn in China that is now not expected to ease until 2027.

Across business lines, the Maintenance segment is the largest by market share, but Modernization is the fastest growing, at around 7% CAGR. Its growth comes at the expense of the New Equipment segment, which is the primary victim of the downturn in the APAC region. In the full version of the updated report, we provide an analysis of the key drivers behind the softened market outlook, with a focus on China’s market decline and the impact of the war in the Middle East.

MEA and Europe growing strongest, but Modernization segment the cash cow

Despite the softened forecast, there are clear bright spots in the market. For example, in addition to the growth in the Modernization segment, our model finds that the MEA, Europe and South America regions are all expected to grow at 5% CAGR between 2025 and 2030[LF5.1][DR5.2]. The MEA figure is notable – despite the current conflict in the Gulf resulting in a dramatic slowdown in new installations, the MEA region’s overall growth prospects remain intact. In value terms, the Maintenance segment is the leader, with predicted growth of USD 13 billion – more than half of the total of USD 23 billion.

In terms of profit growth, the Modernization segment is out in front, with the profit pool of the addressable market increasing from around USD 14 billion to USD 16 billion. The New Equipment segment, however, will remain under pressure, with profits set to fall from USD 5 billion to USD 4 billion.

In the full version of the updated report, we also look at what the big three players in the global elevator market – Kone, Schindler and Otis – expect to happen in the next few years. We found, for example, that Kone was most optimistic about growth in Europe and the MEA regions, as well as the Modernization segment, while Schindler was most pessimistic about the New Equipment segment. See the report for full details.

APAC dynamics shift as rivals take advantage of China’s downturn

While the APAC region is the largest elevator market in the world, its market share is under threat due to a regional slowdown and competition from faster growing regions. In the update, we break down our APAC region forecasts by sub-region and country to identify the primary market drivers and factors behind its declining performance. We find that China still offers significant value potential (USD 4 billion), but it is South East Asia that is the rising star, with around USD 2 billion in value growth potential. Meanwhile, Modernization is the segment to watch, with a CAGR of 8%.

For more details on both the global and APAC-specific growth forecasts, as well as further analysis of our findings, please download the full version of the update or contact one of our experts.

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