Ceramic Tile And Stone Consultants (CTaSC) provides ceramic tile research and marketing services. CTaSC can evaluate products and markets to help determine how best to position, promote and distribute your products in the USA. In addition to the free information below, there is a Comprehensive Ceramic Tile Research Report for the USA Markets that is available that will give you all the details of the Ceramic Tile Industry. The report provides forecasts and trends, and lists major importers and their foreign suppliers. For more information click the following: Ceramic Tile Report

The ceramic tile industry saw its sales more than double over the years up to the current down turn of the US economy, and even after sales had dropped more than 25% in the recent previous years, there is still a shortage of qualified installers. We still need to train more tile installers!!!  Most installers never get any formalized training and don’t fully know the industry standards. We need to train our tile installers!!!  Make sure you require tile installers to be ITS Verified by taking the 4 hour online course to learn the industry standards called “Tile Installer Thin-set Standards (ITS) Verification” course. Visit www.UofCTS.org to learn about online training courses for ceramic tile, glass tile, and stone.

In the Floor Covering Weekly (FCW), volume 63/number 14, 2014 annual statistical report, FCW, Catalina Research, and Jonathan Trivers of MarketWise, reported the following information on the ceramic tile and floor covering industry in USA:

The U.S. floor coverings market surged in 2013 as the housing market finally began to experience a significant recovery.  Dollar floor coverings manufacturer sales (shipments minus exports plus imports) are estimated to have increased by 7.1 percent in 2013 to approximately $20.1 billion.  Quantity sales could have climbed by 5.5 percent to 18.7 billion square feet.  This is the strongest industry growth since 2004, reported Catalina Research.

The acceleration in industry growth over the past year was primarily due to the sharp increase in new and existing home sales as consumers took advantage of historically low interest rates.  The builder market saw an 18.5% increase in housing starts.

Commercial floor covering sales in 2013 were sluggish and was estimated to have increased by only 4.6 percent.  Primate nonresidential building construction spending increased 5.2 percent that partially offsets the 9.4 percent drop in public building construction spending.

Ceramic floor and wall tile accounted for 13.2 percent of total U.S. floor coverings dollar sales of $20.1 billion dollars and 12.9 percent of total square foot sales of 18.73 billion square feet.  Ceramic sales in dollars were up 13.1% in 2013 to $2.65 billion.  Volume was up only 8.8% to 2.4 billion square feet.

Natural stone flooring accounted for 5.9% of the U.S. floor covering sales, and was up 6.9% from 2012 to $1.18 billion.  Stone accounted for 1.6%, or 290 million square feet, of floor covering total square foot sales of 18.73 billion square feet.

In 2013 it was estimated that the floor covering industry had $54.4 billion dollars of total sales including product and labor.  Ceramic Tile had $12.9 billion dollars of product and labor combined sales where labor represents 57%of that value.  Overall average gross profit was estimated to be 32%.   Stone on the other hand had $3 billion dollars of product and labor combined sales where labor represents 60% of that value. Overall average gross profit for stone was estimated to be 35%.

The break down in 2013 of who sold the floor covering combined products and labor was estimated that Floor Covering Stores sold 46% of the $54.4 billion total floor covering sales.  Home Depot sold 9%, Lowe’s sold 6%, Hard Surface Stores sold 11%, and Contractors sold 21%, and internet sales from companies who don’t have stores was 2.2% of total sales.

Ceramic tiles average manufacturers’ cost was $1.10 per square foot compared to natural stone at $4.03 per square foot.  The average ceramic tile selling prices are estimated to have increased by 3.8 percent in 2013.

Ceramic floor tile imports rose in volume to 1.722 billion square feet and in dollars to $1.725 billion in 2013.  In 2014 Imports represents 65.0 percent of ceramic tile dollar sales in USA, and 72 percent of ceramic tile volume.  Domestic production made up the other 28% of volume.  The average import prices were $1.84 per square foot in 2013, a 6.6% decline form the year before, compared to an estimated $2.28 per square foot , a 12.9% increase over 2012, for domestically produced products.   Stone flooring sales are estimated to have increased by 6.9% in 2013 while square foot sales could have increased by 6.2%.

Ceramic tile exports dropped 6% in value in 2013 from $55.7 million to $52.3 million in manufacturer dollars.  Export volume dropped 11% from 57.3 million square feet to 50.8 million square feet.

Residential replacement segment made up 41.5% ($1,101.6 million) of U.S. end-use market tile consumption in 2013, while new commercial segment made up 23.2% ($615.8 million), commercial replacement made up 18.5% ($491.0 million), residential builders for new housing segment made up 16.2% ($430.0 million), manufactured housing made up 0.4% ($10.6 million), and transportation made up 0.2% ($5.3 million) of the $2,654.3 million dollar end-use market total.

Ceramic Tile Per Capita Consumption in 2013 went up to 8.35 square feet per capita in the USA.  Compared to mature markets such as Spain with 25 square feet per capita, Italy with 19 square feet per capita, Brazil with 45 square feet per capita, Canada with 10.65 square feet per capita, and China which had 36 square feet per capital.  So the growth potential for ceramic tile in the U.S.A. is still very high and can increase 5 times or more, leading the way for a very healthy future for all the participants of the ceramic tile industry.  China’s per capita consumption was 34 square feet per capita, and considering their 1.355 billion population that gives China over 39% of the world consumption in 2013.

These and other findings were uncovered in the December 2012 Catalina Report on Ceramic Tile Products. This in-depth 209 page industry investigation covers all aspects of this industry including manufacturing, distribution, installation, industry trends and the economic outlook.  For more information and pricing on the December 2012 Ceramic Tile Product Report go to our Marketing Report section on this website. Click Here.