Ceramic machinery: 2003 turnover at 1,402 million euro

Jun 15, 2004

15/06/04 - The Italian ceramic machinery industry has reported another year of contraction. According to figures published in the 12th National Statistical Survey conducted by Acimac, the sector’s 2003 turnover fell to 1,402.4 million euro, 50 million euro down on 2002 (-3.4%).

The sharpest fall was in the domestic market, where sales dropped by 11.5%, from 484 to 428.5 million euro. Exports remain strong, up from 968.5 to 974 million euro (a slight increase of 0.6 percentage points).
The impact of exports on total turnover is up from 66.7% to 69.4%.

The European Union is confirmed as the leading export area with a 19.7% share of total foreign turnover in spite of a 22.5% fall in sales.

The Middle East is the second largest export market (accounting for 18.6% of total exports) with a turnover of 181.6 million euro and 18% growth over 2002.
The largest client country in the region remains Iran, where the ceramic industry has doubled tile production over the last 5 years.

The third largest export market is Asia (not including China), where 2003 brought an 8.7% increase in sales to a total of 143.9 million euro.

Forecasts for the current year suggest that total turnover will remain stationary, in other words not exceeding 1,400 million euro. Figures for the first half of 2004 confirm a fall in sales in Italy and Spain, the sector’s main markets, while the growth trend is expected to continue in Russia and the Middle East.

According to Acimac, the sector will have to take a two-pronged approach to respond adequately to the fall in overall demand. Firstly, it must continue to offer the market increasingly innovative technological proposals, for which purpose all the companies in the sector are working hard to prepare for Tecnargilla in October when the world’s leading ceramic manufacturers will converge on Rimini. Secondly, the sector must begin to accept the importance of the concentration process as its companies are still too small to cope with the growing costs of research and maintain a presence in markets.

Click to open the two tables of figurescinghie.jpgtwo tables of figurestabelle_acimac.pdf