Economics and markets

Confindustria Ceramica Chairman Giovanni Savorani describes the various factors that have contributed to the slowdown of the sector as well as the measures that have been put in place to exploit new opportunities.

While carpet and hardwood are suffering a decrease of their market share, the US floor covering market experiences the strong advance of LVT.

According to the 86th Euroconstruct Conference report, building production in the area will grow until 2021 (+2.8% in 2018).

The 26th CRESME Outlook and Forecast Report reveals a sector-wide recovery that is expected to continue at least until 2022.

US tile consumption grew just 1.2% in 2018 to about 288 million sq.m. Domestic sales of US tile dropped to 84 million sq.m, while imports rose to 205 million sq.m (+5%), mainly from China, Spain and Brazil.

Canadian imports and consumption of ceramic tiles decreased to 41 million sq.m in 2018.

New home starts in the U.S. achieved 1.26 million units in 2018, but 2019 will be flat after nine consecutive years of growth.

The funds will be used to build social and low-cost housing for the poorest sections of the Nigerian population.

Ceramicolor reports a continued positive performance on the part of the sector in 2018, driven by technological development despite sharp rises in raw materials costs.

Major real-estate and urban development projects will upgrade the city’s image over the next few years.

The Kenyan government’s housing plan involves investments of around $13 billion.

Saudi Arabia’s construction sector is expected to see strong growth with investments of $44 billion planned in 2019 alone.

Acimac Research Dept. updates the yearly analysis of the world ceramic sanitaryware imports/exports flows. Following a two-year period of total stability, sanitaryware exports resumed their upward trend in 2017 reaching 3.1 million tonnes, with a 5.4% growth compared to 2016.

After five years of uninterrupted growth, the Italian ceramic tile industry experienced a downturn in 2018 with production, sales and exports all seeing falls of between 2% and 3%.

Joseph Lundgren Consulting analyses the signs of a possible deceleration of growth of the housing market.

The Spanish ceramic tile industry has revised down the forecasts for 2018 (+2%). Exports grew by 1.6% in the first 9 months of the year.

According to the preliminary figures published by the Acimac Research Department, the sector’s turnover has stabilised at 2 million euros. Exports have fallen while the Italian market has remained steady thanks to the Industry 4.0 programme.

The 2017 rankings of the largest 30 Italian ceramic tile companies. The exclusive annual study was conducted by the magazine Tile Italia and offered to its readers by Ceramic World Review.

Mohawk Industries (USA), SCG (Thailand) and Lamosa (Mexico) lead once again the rankings. Total 2017 tile production of the 26 largest world groups amounted to around 1.83 billion sq.m, 13% of world tile production.

Acimac Research Dept. anticipates to Ceramic World Review the key figures of the 6th edition of the annual report “World production and consumption of ceramic tiles”