World tile production is going through a downturn. This is what emerges from data released in the volume "World Production and Consumption of Ceramic Tiles" produced by Acimac / MECS.
The volume encompasses acomprehensive and detailed 10-year analysis regarding industry, market, per capita consumption and export flows in volume and value by both geographic macro-areas and the 76 largest tile producing, consuming, exporting or importing countries.
Wanting to give a general overview, the first obvious fact concerns the general market decline, which is now a trend.
Global ceramic tile production and consumption lost 3.7 percent and 4 percent in 2019, falling to 12,673 million sq m and 12,375 million sq m, respectively.
Among the major producing countries "responsible" for the downturn is China, which added another -8.7 percent in 2019 to the -11 percent in 2018. At the same time, India strengthened its production by 10.6 percent and Brazil by 4 percent.
At the continent level, Asia experienced a drop in production of another 5 percent; the European Union also has declining production, with -2.8 percent. In America, the situation is different: the increase in Central and South America (+2.2%, 1,173 million sq. m.) offset the decline in North America (-4.9%, 330 million sq. m.). Africa is growing, with +5.7% recorded at the end of 2019.
Meager increase also for import-export flows: only a +1 percent, born from the contraction of Chinese exports (which have been declining steadily) and the increase of other major exporters such as India.
India is currently the third largest exporting country after China and Spain.
The 2020 trend and forecast
Tile production 2020 cannot ignore the overall health situation and the impact Covid is having on markets and production systems.
Currently, it is still difficult to estimate its actual magnitude, mainly because the evolution of the pandemic and the possibility of experiencing new lockdowns is not concretely known.
However, the survey found that, net of new closures, global tile production could shrink by around 8.5 percent to about 11.6 billion sq m.
If so, this would be a smaller decline than the much more negative May forecast, thanks to a recovery in activity starting in June, confirmed by most countries.
China has declared to contain annual production loss below 10%. Worse forecasts for Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and Spain, which expect to end 2020 with declines ranging from -10% to -20%.
On the contrary, among the optimists ticks Turkey, which aims to confirm the same production volumes as in 2019.
The world's largest ceramic groups according to Ceramic World review
Not only producing countries: there are also interesting data with respect to the world's major ceramic groups, released by Ceramic World Review magazine.
The magazine has updated and released the data of the world's top 25 ceramic tile manufacturing groups by publishing the new 2019 ranking by volume produced.
Here is a brief overview of the results:
- Compared with the previous year, the top three positions remain unchanged. In first place is Mohawk Industries, Inc, which as of 12/31/2019 reached a capacity and production of around 250 million sq. m. In second place is the Thai group SCG Ceramics, with a 2019 production of 166 million sq. m. Next, bronze medal for Lamosa, also with a 2019 production of 166 million sq. m.
- In fourth place is Rak Ceramics, which increased its production capacity to 138 million sq. m. and output to more than 101 million, thanks in part to the startup of the large-slab plant in Morbi, India
Compared to the current year, the groups do not anticipate disastrous declines: loss values would appear to be between 1 and 10 percent.
