Europe’s Largest Pool Company Has Its Biggest Market Outside Europe

Fluidra generated RMB 17.21 billion (€2.184 billion) in sales in 2025. North America contributed 44%. Southern Europe and the rest of Europe combined accounted for only 39%.

The company is headquartered in Barcelona and grew up in Europe. Its largest market is no longer in Europe.

Many Chinese companies know little about Fluidra if they look at the industry only through robotic pool cleaners. It is not remembered by consumers for a single robot brand in the way Maytronics is known for Dolphin. Nor is it a wholesaler like POOLCORP, moving products to dealers and service companies. Fluidra is closer to an equipment platform for the pool industry. Its portfolio covers most of the equipment that has to keep running, and eventually be replaced, around a pool—from pumps and filtration to water treatment, heating, automation and cleaning.

Fluidra did not start out at anything close to this scale. In 1969, the Planes, Serra, Corbera and Garrigós families founded Astral in Spain to manufacture pool components. The company opened sales operations in France in 1976 and Italy in 1977, beginning its expansion through Europe. Over the following decades, it gradually brought manufacturing, distribution and multiple pool brands under one group. It listed in Spain under the Fluidra name in 2007.

The transaction that changed its scale and position in the market was the 2018 merger with Zodiac.

Before the merger, Fluidra already had a strong base in Europe, Asia and Australia. Zodiac had spent years building its US business, with Jandy, Polaris and Zodiac among its brands. At the time of the merger, the combined company generated about RMB 10.25 billion (€1.3 billion) in annual sales and operated in more than 45 countries. Along with the well-known brands came an established North American product, channel and service system.

The merger also redrew Fluidra’s revenue map. North America represented 31.1% of sales in 2019 and still trailed Europe. By 2025, North American revenue had reached approximately RMB 7.56 billion (€959 million), or 44% of the group total. That was already higher than the RMB 6.79 billion (€861 million), or 39%, generated across Europe as a whole.

Zodiac was part of the reason North America became Fluidra’s largest market. The structure of the local pool industry did the rest. The United States has a vast installed base of pools. Once a pool has been built, its pump, filter, heater and cleaning equipment require maintenance and eventual replacement. Fluidra divides pool demand into three broad areas: roughly 30% from new residential construction, 60% from residential maintenance, repair and renovation, and 10% from commercial pools.

A decline in new pool construction therefore does not take most of Fluidra’s revenue with it. North American new construction was still under pressure from high interest rates and inflation in 2025, yet Fluidra’s business in the region continued to grow. Aftermarket demand from the installed pool base gives it a steadier revenue stream than an ordinary durable consumer product.

Pool and wellness accounted for 98% of Fluidra’s revenue in 2025, with residential pools contributing 70%. The company does not depend on one flagship product. Its broad equipment portfolio earns a place in the purchasing systems of builders, dealers and service companies. AstralPool, Jandy, Polaris and Zodiac may face different customers, but behind them sits the same Fluidra R&D, manufacturing and channel platform.

Scale also brings complexity. Fluidra’s catalog contains more than 80,000 SKUs. Pool specifications, certification requirements, channel practices and brand histories vary from one country to another, making many products difficult to consolidate. Fluidra ran a Simplification Programme from 2023 through 2025 that delivered roughly RMB 790 million (€100 million) in savings over three years. The cost of carrying it out was slightly higher than the savings themselves.

Fluidra’s global footprint and complete product range form its moat. They can also slow product development, inventory management and coordination across the organization. That operating model is still effective for pumps and filters. In cordless robotic pool cleaners and smart equipment, product cycles are moving much faster, and Fluidra’s old way of operating has to move with them.

Fluidra invested about RMB 500 million (€64 million) in R&D and related innovation in 2025 and held 1,601 active patents. Products launched over the previous five years generated 19% of sales. The company also opened a new global R&D center in China, bringing development closer to the pool-equipment supply chain and one of the markets where new products are moving fastest.

That same year, Fluidra invested about RMB 680 million ($100 million) for a 27% stake in Aiper. The investment adds cordless robotic pool-cleaner technology, consumer retail reach and a faster product cadence to Fluidra’s capabilities. It is one part of the company’s effort to reshape its product capabilities. It does not change the fact that traditional pool equipment and the professional market remain the foundation of Fluidra’s business.

Fluidra has grown from a pool-component manufacturer founded in 1969 into a global equipment group with more than RMB 17 billion in annual sales. Its expansion has always revolved around the same idea: enter more pools, then participate in the maintenance and upgrades those pools will require for decades.

The Zodiac merger in 2018 carried Fluidra across the line from a European company to a global one, and made North America a genuine center of the business. Fluidra’s next task is no longer to add more countries. It has to make an organization with 80,000 SKUs, multiple brands and global channels move at the speed of robotic pool cleaners and smart equipment.

North America helped make Fluidra the global leader it is today. How far the company goes from here will depend on whether it can retain the advantages of scale without letting its own complexity slow it down.