Biggest carpet manufacturers
Based upon 2015 sales, the biggest carpet companies were:1. Shaw: $3.2 billion2. Mohawk: $2.65 billion3. Engineered Floors: $540 million4. Interface (tile carpet): $520 million5. Beaulieu: $504 million6. Dixie Group: $419 millionSource: Floor Focus. Carpet includes broadloom, modular tile and rugs and totaled $10.8 billion in 2015.
In this 2010 file photo, Donna Shook removes used spools of thread from the creeling area at the Dixie Group carpet plant in Eton, Ga.
Fernando Artiga, foreground, and Aaron Carpenter wrap up a piece of carpet for shipping on Friday morning. Workers at the Dixie Group carpet plant in Eton, Georgia, produced, inspected and shipped carpet on Friday. The plant has been surviving in the harsh economic times and Dixie CEO Dan Frierson believes the facility has a bright future ahead.The Dixie Group Inc. more than doubled its losses last year after carpet sales fell 6 percent in 2016, but company CEO Dan Frierson expects better performance in 2017 as Dixie improves operations and expands its emerging hard surface business lines.
The Chattanooga-based carpet maker said Monday its operating losses last year more than doubled from the losses in 2015 to $5.2 million, or 33 cents per share, compared with a loss of $2.28 million, or 15 cents per share, in 2015.
For 2016, Dixie sales were down 5.9 percent to $397.5 million even with an extra week in the reporting period compared with the previous year. On a comparable 52-week basis, net sales for 2016 were down 7.2 percent from 2015.
“Despite this difficult year from a profit perspective, we have made several significant changes to improve our results in the future,” Frierson said Monday.