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 recent 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 64/number 14, July 27, 2015 FCW Annual Statistical Report 2014, 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 continue to recover in 2014. Dollar floor coverings manufacturer sales (shipments minus exports plus imports) are estimated to have increased by 5.6 percent in 2014 to approximately $21.83 billion.  Quantity sales could have climbed by 3 percent to 19.6 billion square feet.  This adds to the strongest industry growth trends since the 2002 to 2005 housing boom.

The U.S. floor covering recovery has been driven by the 18.1 percent compound annual growth in housing starts over the 2001 to 2014 period. In 2014, housing starts increased only 8.4 percent and housing completions by square feet rose by 12.7 percent.

The recovery in the residential replacement market was stimulated by a 5 per cent compound annual increase in existing home sales between 2011 and 2014.  This led to a 4.8 percent annual growth rate in consumer floor coverings pending over this period.  Existing home sales declined in 2014 due to the increase in mortgage interest rates and sluggish gains in employment and personal income.   As a result, consumer floor coverings spending increased by only 2.9 percent in 2014.

The recovery in commercial floor coverings purchases strengthened in 2014.  Nonresidential building construction spending increased by 5.6 percent after declining by 0.6 percent in 2013.   Stronger gains in 2014 were led by an 11.4 percent increase in private nonresidential building construction spending.   Government building construction spending continued to decrease that dragged down the increase in commercial demand.

In 2014, the shift to hard surface flooring was led by gains in wood flooring, luxury vinyle tile and ceramic tile.

Chinese-produced flooring accounted for 40.6 percent of total dollar imports in 2014 and an estimated 13.9 percent of total U.S. sales.

Ceramic floor and wall tile accounted for 12.2 percent of total U.S. floor coverings dollar sales of $21.83 billion dollars and 12.5 percent of total square foot sales of 19.64 billion square feet. Ceramic sales in dollars were up 6.6% in 2014 to $2.672 billion. Volume was up only 3.8% to 2.456 billion square feet.

Natural stone flooring accounted for 5.7% of the U.S. floor covering sales, and was up 5.3% from 2013 to $1.237 billion. Stone accounted for 1.5%, or 295 million square feet, of floor covering total square foot sales of 19.64 billion square feet.

In 2014 it was estimated that the floor covering industry had $57.6 billion dollars of total sales including product and labor. Ceramic Tile had $13.7 billion dollars of product and labor combined sales where labor represents 56.2% of that value. Overall average gross profit was estimated to be 32.8%. Stone on the other hand had $3.1 billion dollars of product and labor combined sales where labor represents 58.1% of that value. Overall average gross profit for stone was estimated to be 38.7%.

The break down in 2014 of who sold the floor covering combined products and labor was estimated that Floor Covering Stores sold 48.3% of the $57.6 billion total floor covering sales. Home Depot sold 9.2%, Lowe’s sold 5.4%, Hard Surface Stores sold 7.6%, Lumber Liquidators sold 1.7%, The Tile Shop sold 0.5%, Floor & Decor sold 0.7%, Contractors sold 21.2%, other stores sold 4.9%, and internet sales from companies who don’t have stores was 2.6% of total sales.

Ceramic tiles average manufacturers’ per square foot price increased from $1.06 in 2013 to $1.09 in 2014, compared to natural stone at $4.20 per square foot. The average ceramic tile selling prices increased in 2014, primarily caused by a 7 percent increase in average import prices.  Imports are estimated to have represented 69.6 percent of total square foot sales in 2014, down from 72.8 percent in 2013.

Ceramic floor tile imports rose in volume to 1.710 billion square feet and in dollars to $1.823 billion in 2014. In 2014 Imports represents 68.2 percent of ceramic tile dollar sales in USA, and 69.6 percent of ceramic tile volume. Domestic production made up the other 30.4% of volume.

Ceramic tile exports increased 25.2% in value in 2013 from $52.3 million to $65.5 million in manufacturer dollars. Export volume increased 5.5% from 50.8 million square feet to 53.6 million square feet.

Residential replacement segment made up 37.0% ($989.8 million) of U.S. end-use market tile consumption in 2014, while new commercial segment made up 27.0% ($721.2 million), commercial replacement made up 16.0% ($426.9 million), residential builders for new housing segment made up 19.4% ($518.6million), manufactured housing made up 0.4% ($10.7 million), and transportation made up 0.2% ($5.2 million) of the $2,672.4 million dollar end-use market total.

Ceramic Tile Per Capita Consumption in 2014 went up to 8.38 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 39 square feet per capita, and considering their 1.355 billion population that gives China over 40.5% of the world consumption in 2014.

These and other findings were uncovered in the July 2015 Catalina Report on Ceramic Tile Products. This in-depth 200 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 July 2015 Ceramic Tile Product Report go to our Industry Report section on this website. Click Here.