Waiting for Indian Ceramics Asia 2025

The 19th annual edition of Indian Ceramics Asia will be held in Gandhinagar from 5 to 7 March.

From 5 to 7 March, the Indian ceramic industry will meet again in Gandhinagar for the 19th annual edition of Indian Ceramics Asia, the most important exhibition in the country dedicated to ceramic raw materials, machinery, equipment, glazes and chemical products.

Jointly organized by Messe München and Unifair Exhibition Service, the show will feature around 140 exhibitors from India, Europe, China and other countries. More than 9,000 visitors are expected (they were 8,221 last year, from 33 countries).

The industry’s leading international suppliers will all be present. These include the Italian machinery, equipment and material manufacturers Appel, Cimes, Interser, Lamberti, LB, Metco, Minerali Industriali Engineering, Sacmi, Officine Smac, Surfaces Group, System Ceramics, and Tecnoferrari: most of them will be exhibiting in the Italian pavilion organised by ACIMAC in cooperation with the Italian Trade Agency, while some of them will be present with their Indian companies, or with the local agent, as it’s the case for Air Power and Mectiles.

The ACIMAC-ICE pavilion will also be the distribution point for the Ceramic World Review magazine which, as usual, has produced a special issue in Hindi.

Germany will also attend the exhibition with 17 companies (Eirich, Händle, Lingl, and the raw material supplier AKW are among them), most of which inside the German country pavilion. Other international brands include Sibelco, in the field of ceramic raw materials, and the Spanish company Equipceramic in the field of heavyclay machinery.

The Indian ceramic tile industry

In the last couple of years, the Indian ceramic tile industry has further strengthened its position as a global tile player and as the world’s second largest manufacturer, consumer and exporter behind China.

The last available figures for a complete calendar year refer to 2023 and show that India’s tile producers chalked up another astonishing success with total exports of 589 million sqm (up 40% on 2022), representing 21.4% of total global exports and 24% of Indian national production that year. In value, exports were up 33.7% to 2.8 billion USD. Indian exports in volume grew above all outside the Asian markets (which still absorb 42% of Indian exports): Indian sales grew by 68% in Africa, by 77% in the European Union, by 142% in Extra-EU Europe, by 133% in South America, and by 52% in North America.

Forecasts to 2028

According to “Ceramic Tile Market Forecast Analysis. TRENDS 2024-2028”, the forecast report for the global ceramic tile market, published last November by the MECS-Acimac Research Centre, India is poised to acquire a growing share of global ceramic tile production, with output forecast to rise by an average of 5.9% per year to 3.3 billion sq.m through 2028. This corresponds to 813 million sqm of additional output respect to 2023 levels.

The increase in national consumption will be even more marked (+7.8% CAGR 2024-2028), with volumes reaching 2.5 billion sq.m in 2028, i.e. 778 million sq.m more than in 2023. The progress of the Indian ceramic market will be supported by the excellent performance of the national economy (GDP is expected to grow by 6.6% per year over the 5 years) and by the good performance of investments in the construction sector, estimated to increase by an average of 3.7% per year by 2028.