Foreign anti-dumping domestic demand greatly reduced pottery enterprises into winter

“The situation is not very good. There are more kiln shutdowns, early cessation of kiln sales, and less sales. There is less profit.” At the first China Ceramics 50-person Forum held in December last year, Li Zhilin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Jianyi Ceramics, had never thought of the “Origin”. , Become a portrayal of the current Foshan ceramics.

Behind this is the difficult operating situation encountered by Foshan Ceramics: foreign anti-dumping "pressing siege", drastic reduction in domestic demand, rising manpower and raw material costs, coupled with the continued expansion of production capacity, the ceramic industry "printed tiles are like printing money "The era of the past has never returned. The business of ceramic companies has experienced chills.

What is more serious is that after the central government adjusts the policy of “unshakeable real estate regulation”, the possibility of real estate recovering in a short period of time will decrease, and the ceramic industry that depends on it will face a more severe situation. The winter of 2012 is approaching and has become the consensus of many Taoists.

Complete the nest with eggs?

In 2011, one of the most closely watched issues in China was the decline in housing prices, and the owners of pottery companies were even more concerned. When Li Zhilin was in contact with real estate bosses, he always asked several questions repeatedly: How much can housing prices be reduced? When is it bottomed out? When does the transaction amount?

Li Zhilin’s concern with real estate is that ceramics business is closely related to the real estate market. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in November 2011, the decline in house prices continued to deepen in 70 large and medium-sized cities, especially in restricted cities, and the transaction volume continued to shrink. Due to the decline in the trading volume of commercial housing, it means less demand for decoration, which has a greater impact on the downstream of the real estate industry - the building materials industry. It is understood that the National Building Materials Home Furnishing Index (BHI) issued by the China Construction Material Circulation Association was 110.18 in November, a decrease of 9.08% from the previous month and a decrease of 0.35% from the same period of last year, indicating a significant downward trend.

In fact, the impact of the property market on the ceramics industry has emerged in the second half of last year. It is understood that due to the shrinking market, Foshan ceramics business is more difficult, it is expected that more than 50% of the company's product inventory exceeds a reasonable level.

For the Tao enterprises this year's business, it is even more worrying that the deserted property market will continue. The Central Economic Work Conference held in December last year pointed out that "adhering to the real estate regulatory policies will not waver, and promote the reasonable return of housing prices." This set the tone, so that the industry's development of the real estate industry in 2012 is generally pessimistic.

Under cover, have finished eggs? “The prosperity of the real estate market is closely related to the ceramic industry. As the regulation will continue, the operation of the ceramics industry will not be optimistic next year,” said Li Zhilin. Luo Youyi, chairman of Asia-Pacific Media, which has 16 publications in the home furnishing industry and has conducted in-depth research on the pan-home industry, said that the pan-home industry has experienced winter in the second half of last year, and this “dark winter” is expected to last until 2013. The industry is no exception.

It is also not optimistic that production capacity still expands orders but decreases in the export market.

Anti-dumping will be the biggest obstacle to the export of Foshan ceramics this year. It is understood that in 2011 alone, the European Union, South Korea, Argentina and other countries launched anti-dumping investigations on Chinese-made tiles. In particular, the EU's anti-dumping tax implementation deadline is 5 years, which has a huge impact on Foshan ceramic exports. According to Pu Dingxin, the CEO of Asian ceramics, due to EU anti-dumping, only from the Canton Fair in the second half of last year, merchants from Europe dropped by more than 50%, and orders volume also fell by nearly 30%.

Statistics from Foshan Customs show that from January to October 2011, Foshan exported 26.85 million square meters of tiles to the EU, valued at US$160 million, and its volume and value dropped by 24.4% and 20.1% respectively. According to industry estimates, in 2012, the United States, Brazil, Vietnam and other places are likely to launch anti-dumping on Chinese tiles, coupled with the global economy is facing the risk of falling again, the ceramic export situation is grim.

Whether the ceramic industry is booming or not, the trend from the pottery industry can also be seen. The general manager of Modena Machinery, Guan Huojin, told reporters that since the second half of 2011, orders for the entire industry chain fell sharply. “The total number of presses like the leading boss Keda in 2010 decreased by nearly 50% year-on-year. Last year The situation is not very good. It is estimated that the total number of presses this year will not exceed 500 units. The overall situation is still rather severe."

Different from the decline in market demand, tile production still shows a rapid increase. According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in the first 10 months of 2011, China's ceramic tile production was 7.54 billion square meters, an increase of 14% year-on-year. Among them, the output growth of Guangdong and Fujian, with a relatively large proportion of exports, was above 16%, which led to an increase of 10% in national ceramic tile production.

In the view of Pipe Fire, overcapacity is also a problem facing the ceramics industry this year. “The survey of the China Building Sanitary Ceramics Association shows that at present the entire ceramics industry’s entire production line is more than 3,000. Calculated according to a year's production of 330 days, the output has already exceeded 10 billion square meters, and according to the 'twelfth five-year plan’, the 2015’s The planned production of ceramic tile is 9.5 billion square meters, which means that the existing production capacity can meet the market demand without any additional production line."

While sales are facing difficulties, the cost of ceramic companies is still increasing. It is understood that in 2011, the price of zirconium silicate with high amounts of glazes, blanks and frits rose from about 10,000 yuan/ton to more than 20,000 yuan/ton, and the price doubled, while many color glazes The increase in cost of materials and other materials is also 50% or more. Coupled with the fact that Foshan ceramics industry generally has a salary increase rate of more than 20%, the profitability of ceramic companies is greatly reduced. Industry insiders expect that rising costs will remain one of the pressures for operating next year.

â–  2012 Key words Safe Housing In the case of declining real estate transaction volume and slowdown in commercial housing investment, the construction of affordable housing promoted by the central government is regarded as the biggest opportunity for the ceramic industry. According to the national housing and urban-rural construction work conference held on December 23 last year by the party committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Minister Jiang Weixin introduced the task of starting construction of 10 million sets of affordable housing and shantytown reconstruction in advance and exceeded. In 2012, more than 7 million sets of affordable housing and shantytowns were reconstructed, and basically more than 5 million units were completed. The number of completions was higher than in 2011.

However, due to the lag in the demand for the decoration of the protection housing, its demand for ceramic products did not have much pulling in 2011. Li Zhilin, chairman of Jianyi Ceramics, believes that this year's protection of housing has been so big, but ceramics companies have not benefited significantly. It is estimated that it will only really improve next year.

Yin Hong, secretary general of the Foshan Ceramics Industry Association, also believes that the construction of social housing is the market for ceramics companies this year. “In 2010, it was 10 million units, which was equivalent to 800 million square meters for a set of 80 square meters, and 2 square meters for a square meter of construction area was 2.4 billion square meters, which greatly promoted the ceramic industry, and companies must Do a good job of preparation."

E-commerce e-commerce has increasingly become an important channel for expanding sales in various industries. Many companies in the Foshan ceramics industry have begun to test water. Brand companies such as Dongpeng and Jinyitao have their own stores on Taobao. There are also ceramic companies trying to use Twitter and other social media for new marketing. However, as ceramic tile consumers pay more attention to the real experience of the product, e-commerce in the ceramics industry is currently less effective.

In the last year when tile production capacity continued to increase but market demand was declining, it became more urgent to expand more sales channels to drive sales. As a supplement to traditional sales channels, ceramic e-commerce may also usher in new opportunities for development. Zhang Jinchao, the deputy general manager of Jin Yitao, told reporters that Jin Yitao’s focus on channel transformation in 2012 was one of the networks. “We have set specific targets for online sales, and sales will exceed RMB 5 million. This is our reform. one."

Yin Hong believes that Foshan has better brands, channels, and better networks than other regions. The next step is to consolidate and use these advantages. “Tile e-commerce also needs to start operations to expand sales.”

In the downturn of the overall market environment, the ceramics industry in 2012 is not without space. In this space, the biggest possibility is the subdivided markets, including the third and fourth tier cities and rural markets and export markets.

Luo Yi, chairman of Asia-Pacific Media, believes that in fact, in this regulation, the real estate industry and the home building materials industry, the first and second-tier cities are affected greatly, the three-tier cities have little effect, the four-tier cities that is the county has no effect and most As it rises, new demands are formed. Yin Hong also believes that the rural market is a place that ceramics companies should pay attention to in the future. “Since this year our country’s urban population exceeds that of the rural population, Tao’s enterprises should expand their sales channels, especially the rural market network, and further sink in rural market channels. ."

Under the multinational anti-dumping siege, it is necessary to open up new export markets. “Like India, with a population of nearly 1.2 billion, the output is only 600 million square meters, which is less than 10% of ours, so the growth space in India is very large, and the opportunities in Southeast Asia as a whole are good.”

The reporter observes that the industry is slowing down, and that the enterprises must be stronger in the strict regulation of the property market. The industry is not optimistic about the ceramic industry this year. The author believes that this is a transitional “window period” for Foshan ceramics and even for the entire Chinese ceramic industry: the industry needs to adjust the pace of rapid growth, and companies need to accelerate technological innovation, brand building, and channel improvement to enhance Core competitiveness.

In the past few years, due to the advancement of urbanization in China, the real estate market has been extremely hot, and ceramics have also enjoyed a feast as a downstream industry. Over the years, tile production has maintained a growth rate of over 10%. Even though it experienced a financial crisis in 2008, the government’s economic stimulus still kept the ceramic industry from being hit hard and maintained a large increase.

Judging from the development cycle of the industry, an industry cannot always maintain high-speed development, and one stage that must be strengthened is quality improvement. However, many years of development in the ceramics industry is still an expansion of volume and there has been no significant improvement in quality. In the world ceramics industry, although China's ceramic enterprises are at the forefront of some technologies, overall, they still have a large gap with countries such as Italy and Spain, and there is still no Chinese ceramic brand that can be heard in the world.

Today, the recovery of the world economy is slow, and the ceramics industry in Italy, Spain and other countries are affected to a certain extent, which gives Chinese ceramics companies an opportunity. In the current situation where the overall market environment is not optimistic, instead of pursuing the growth rate of the industry, we should stop and think about which direction the industry is going to develop and where to focus, so as to improve the quality of development; enterprises should also take this opportunity to reduce Blind investment and expansion, calm down to ponder where the core competitiveness, product innovation, branding, channel development and other work to be improved, so as to enhance the advantages in the competition. Only through the winter and even reserve energy in the winter can we grow faster and better when spring comes.