【 Industry News】Operational Overview of China's Architectural Ceramics Industry in 2024
The following article is sourced from the China Building & Sanitary Ceramics Association
2025-01-03
In 2024, China's architectural ceramics industry accelerated its transformation amid policy-driven changes and market restructuring, showing a multi-dimensional reform trend. With the continuous strengthening of the "dual-carbon" policy, documents such as 《Benchmark Energy Efficiency Levels in Key Industrial Sectors》 clearly required the phasing out of inefficient production capacity by the end of 2025, forcing the industry to focus on green production and smart manufacturing. The implementation of carbon trading policies further promoted the green restructuring of the industrial chain, with clean energy replacement and energy-saving transformation of kilns becoming the core directions of technological upgrading.
Meanwhile, the structural adjustment of the real estate market spawned new opportunities: the surge in demand for renovation of existing housing drove the rise of the old housing renovation market, pushing the industry toward personalization and service-oriented development. Niche segments such as integrated bathroom solutions and elderly-friendly products grew rapidly. The trend of consumption grading reshaped the market pattern, with high-end customization and cost-effective routes developing in parallel. Leading enterprises accelerated market concentration relying on advantages in brand, technology, and cost, while mid-tier enterprises faced squeezed living space, intensifying the industry's polarization. The integrated decoration model emerged prominently; cross-industry competition forced enterprises to transform from single-product suppliers to spatial solution service providers, making customized and integrated development a new competitive high ground. In terms of product innovation, demand for healthy products such as smart toilets and anti-slip, antibacterial functional tiles climbed, and the silver economy drove elderly-friendly renovation to become a new growth driver.
Amid these multiple changes, the industry is shifting from scale expansion to quality and efficiency improvement, exploring a new path of high-quality development driven by policies, market, and technology.
Ceramic Tile Output from 2006 to 2024 Output (Unit：100 million square meters)
In 2024, China's sanitary ceramics output reached 181 million pieces, a slight year-on-year decrease of 2.69%. In recent years, despite the impact of the downward real estate market, the overall output of sanitary ceramics has shown a declining trend, but the overall market demand has remained resilient, with output stabilizing between 180 million and 190 million pieces in the past three years.
Number of Above-Scale Architectural Ceramics Enterprises from 2019 to 2024
In 2024, enterprises' operating income, total profits, and profit margins all declined—with operating income falling more sharply, while the decline in profit margins narrowed. Different from the differentiated performance of enterprises in 2023, the industry's operating trend was generally weak in 2024: the number of loss-making enterprises increased, the scope of corporate losses expanded, and the amount of losses rose. At the same time, inventory value decreased and corporate liabilities were reduced, indicating that enterprises tended to adopt more prudent operating strategies in the context of a downward market. Currently, China's architectural ceramics industry faces two coexisting problems: unbalanced regional development across production areas and widespread overcapacity. The operation of production areas showed obvious differentiation, with some maintaining relative stability. Among traditional major production areas, the output of Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Shandong provinces dropped by nearly or more than double digits. Export disruptions had a significant impact on the operation of Guangdong's production area, while Jiangxi's output decline was mainly affected by the return or transfer of orders to other production areas. The operation of production areas in Fujian and Guangxi remained stable, with output basically the same as in 2023. Although emerging production areas such as Heilongjiang and Anhui saw significant growth rates, their low output bases limited their impact on national output. Overall, the kiln operation rate and capacity utilization rate of southern production areas were better than those of northern areas. The main factors contributing to this differentiation are market demand support, differences in energy costs, and the environmental protection policy environment.
Ceramic Tile Export Volume from 2006 to 2024 Export Volume (Unit:100 million square meters)
In 2024, China's ceramic tile exports showed the phased characteristics of "stable volume, falling prices, and structural pressure." The export volume remained at 600 million square meters, a slight decrease of 2.86% compared with 618 million square meters in 2023, staying within the recent fluctuation range (580-620 million square meters). The average export unit price fell from USD 7.86 per square meter to USD 5.40 per square meter, causing the export value to drop from USD 4.856 billion to USD 3.241 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 33.26%—the lowest in nearly eight years. This reflects the price competition dilemma faced by export products in the international market. On one hand, infrastructure demand in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East supported stable export volume, but the expanding proportion of mid-to-low-end products led to price declines. On the other hand, trade protectionism implemented by many countries forced enterprises to cut prices to maintain market share, hindering the process of high-end export.
2024 Ceramic Tile Export Destinations
Philippines: 14%, Indonesia: 10%, South Korea: 10%, Peru: 9%, Thailand: 7%, Australia: 5%, Cambodia: 4%, Vietnam: 3%, Malaysia: 3%, Chile: 2%, Others: 33%
In 2024, the total export volume of China's ceramic tiles to the top 10 destination countries/regions reached 402 million square meters, accounting for 66.92% of the total export volume—with concentration increasing by approximately 2 percentage points compared with 2023. The Philippines, Indonesia, and South Korea remained the top three for three consecutive years, still serving as core markets. It is worth noting that in October 2024, Indonesia began imposing anti-dumping duties of approximately RMB 6.06 to RMB 42.63 per square meter on Chinese tile exports, which will severely impact exports to the Indonesian market.
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In recent years, with the rise of global trade protectionism, many countries have frequently initiated anti-dumping investigations and imposed high tariffs on Chinese ceramic tile products, putting China's tile exports under severe challenges. To avoid trade barriers and reduce operational risks, ceramic enterprises have accelerated the transfer of production capacity overseas, investing in building factories in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and other regions to achieve localized production. According to incomplete statistics, the total annual production capacity of overseas Chinese-funded ceramic tile factories has now reached approximately 400 million square meters, and their products have formed competitive advantages in the international market due to high cost-effectiveness. This strategic transformation not only allows enterprises to be closer to consumer markets and leverage local cost advantages but also drives the overseas expansion of supporting industrial chains such as ceramic equipment and color glazes, gradually forming a pattern of coordinated overseas development of the industrial chain. However, while expanding overseas production capacity, upstream raw material products such as color glazes have seen increasingly fierce price competition due to intensified market rivalry.
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From a global perspective, in 2023, the major ceramic tile-producing countries were China, India, Brazil, Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam, Spain, Italy, and Turkey—essentially the same list as in 2022. Except for India and Egypt, the output of other major producers declined to varying degrees compared with 2022. The top 10 countries in terms of export volume were China, India, Spain, Italy, Iran, Brazil, Turkey, Ghana, Poland, and Mexico. Compared with the pre-pandemic period, the export scales of traditional major exporters such as China, Spain, and Italy have contracted, while India, Iran, and Ghana have shown strong export growth momentum. In 2023, China's annual per capita consumption of ceramic tiles was 4 square meters, which is still at a high level compared with 1-3 square meters per capita per year in developed countries.
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