In recent years, the ceramic industry has been looking for a balance between destruction and establishment. Take this year's situation as an example: low kiln opening rate, production restrictions, suspensions, closures, bankruptcies, runaways and other bad situations have been bombarded in turn; the price of ceramic raw materials has risen; the "coal-to-gas" policy continues to "rush", and environmental standards have changed more and more. The more stringent it becomes; exports are affected by "double-reverse" regulations, etc. At the same time as these not-so-good things happened, the army of ceramic enterprises continued to migrate from Guangdong, the largest production area, whether they moved to Teng County, the "New Ceramics Capital of South China", or to Southeast Asia, or even went deep into Africa to invest and build factories. etc., never giving up the pursuit of innovation and progress.
There are too many bitternesses and difficulties in the mutual excitement of destruction and establishment in the ceramic industry. Whenever "difficulty" is mentioned in the industry, people always immediately think or limit it to the fact that it is difficult for ceramic enterprises to operate and it is difficult for dealers to sell. Both are indeed difficult, but the difficulty is by no means limited to manufacturers and dealers.
The ceramic industry is a traditional industry, but its internal competition is more intense and complex than that of emerging industries. It has a long upstream and downstream industrial chain and large industrial clusters, but its concentration level is relatively low. The ceramic industry includes a variety of groups, companies and service providers, such as production companies, equipment technology companies, raw material suppliers, dealers, industry media, associations, exhibition organizations, etc.
With the transformation and upgrading of the ceramic industry and the reorganization of industrial scale, no party can survive alone.
Manufacturers and dealers: Where is the way?
Environmental protection, real estate, and export are the three sharp knives hanging over the heads of ceramic production companies. If one falls at will, it can cause skin damage at least, or endanger life at worst.
From the perspective of environmental protection, the horn of environmental protection has been sounded for more than ten years, and it is no longer a matter of a gust of wind or a gust of rain. During the military parade, there was a square formation of floats in the shape of "green water and green mountains". People and vehicles cooperated with each other to show a beautiful picture. Displaying such a float on such an important occasion means that environmental protection has long become a national strategy and a defense battle that the country must win!
In the recent news about environmental protection rectification, it is obvious that the rectificationIncreased intensity. Remember Zhong Taojun's "Coal to Gas, Is It Really So Terrible?" "Hebei's "coal-to-gas" road described in the article, is there a love-hate relationship between enterprises and the government? In order to improve environmental quality, the Hebei Provincial Government has further strengthened rectification this year. 167 of the 280 ceramic companies in the central area of Tangshan have been shut down; in the first half of 2019, 53 brick and tile kilns, 76 ceramic and other industrial kilns have reached standards throughout the entire process. All construction has started, and production will be suspended for rectification within a certain period. Relevant departments will remove electricity meters and cut off power to enterprises that have stopped production.
For some companies that are avoiding the limelight of "environmental reform", they probably can't wait until the day when the country gives up on environmental protection!
From an export perspective, many countries have conducted “anti-dumping and anti-dumping investigations” on my country’s exports in recent years. The "World Tile Production and Consumption Report" published by the research department of the Italian Ceramic Machinery and Equipment Manufacturers Association (Acimac) shows that China is the world's largest ceramic tile producer, consumer and exporter. In 2018, China's production and consumption experienced a serious decline for the first time. shrank, while export volumes fell for the fifth consecutive year. Other data show that China's ceramic product export volume from January to July 2019 was 12.17 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 3.6%.
The "double-reverse anti-dumping investigation" not only affects the export volume of China's ceramic industry, but also greatly affects the confidence of ceramic manufacturers. In September this year, the preliminary results of the U.S. ceramic tile countervailing investigation were announced. Among the Chinese companies involved, the highest countervailing tax rate was 222.24% and the lowest was 103.77%. This has greatly increased the export cost of Chinese ceramic tile products, and some companies have bluntly stated that they want to abandon the US market.
From a real estate perspective, in recent years, real estate regulation, hard-decorated housing policies, and the emerging trend of prefabricated housing have had a considerable impact on the product retail and channel construction of ceramic companies and dealers. First, because fine decoration and complete decoration have higher product requirements, first-tier ceramic brands often become the first choice of real estate giants for cooperation. Second-tier and third-tier brands are obviously hindered in the development of these channels and have been hit hard. Second, because finely decorated houses and prefabricated houses have strict selection conditions for brands and partners, if the headquarters is not taking the lead, it will be difficult for dealers to access larger real estate projects with their own strength, which restricts the development of dealers. Third, the emergence of finely decorated, fully decorated, and prefabricated housing and the implementation of policies mean that the number of rough houses is reduced, which directly affects the retail sales of terminal products. Dealers hope to expand product sales channels through cooperation with assembly companies, but due to the market environmentThe changing environment and the depth of the home furnishing industry make it easy for dealers to be deceived and lose their money.
Whether it is the strengthening of environmental protection, real estate changes or the impact of exports, ceramic manufacturers and dealers are being told that traditional production methods, sales models, and promotion models are no longer suitable for the current market. The waves wash away the sand, the survival of the fittest and the survival of the fittest are timeless principles.
Raw material suppliers: Tighter supervision makes mining difficult
For raw material manufacturers, the current market environment brings them mainly pressure: rising costs due to difficulties in raw material mining, the inability to sell raw materials due to the suspension of production by ceramic companies, price competition, reduced profit margins, etc.
This year, the government has stepped up environmental protection and safety improvements in quarries, mines, and raw material processing plants, and many mines and raw material processing plants have been shut down. In order to restrict the mining of raw materials and strengthen the safe production of raw materials, the government has also increased supervision and penalties for companies and personnel who mine without licenses. Because raw material mines cannot be mined, many ceramic production raw materials are in short supply, such as magnesia soil.
In addition, the impact of concentrated production or line suspensions by ceramic companies has had a greater impact on the sales of raw materials such as colorants, glazes, and frits. However, due to Linyi City's recent shutdown and transformation, the demand for frit raw materials has dropped sharply. In order to attract customers, many manufacturers choose to reduce melting fees. Due to competition with each other, the melting fee gradually decreased, approaching the cost price, resulting in a reduction in profit margins.
The lips are cold, the raw materials dependent on the ceramic enterprise, and the ceramic enterprise is struggling in the current market environment. Why isn't raw material vendor?
Industry media: In the era of information explosion, it’s so difficult!
In the Internet age, everything can be "matched". Behind such "hard goods" as the ceramic industry is a huge media army. In addition to mass media, industry media, paper media, and websites, there are also many new media, WeChat public accounts, etc., covering the upstream and downstream industry chains of the ceramic industry in an all-round way, disseminating the latest industry trends with high efficiency around the clock.
The ceramic industry is internally complex, with production areas having different development status and situations; and the ceramic companies that have been subdivided are even more complicated, with a lot of information. Therefore, the media has the function of collecting and organizing information. Faced with so much information, how to ensure the authenticity and effectiveness of the information; how to publish it as soon as possible; how to follow up the report afterwards; how to regularly summarize the trends in the industry, conduct in-depth thinking and publish valuable comments, and at the same time stimulate everyone's thinking; How to predict the future trend of the industry through one's own understanding of the industry; how to maintain the characteristics and innovation points of one's own media in the era of information explosion so that one's own media can stand out among many peers... This requires a lot of efforts from many media practitioners. Big effort.
The media does not have accurate positioning and reliable sources of information, which can easily lead to blind self-interest; it does not correctly understand the functions of the media, and profit and money are more important than anything else, which damages the image of media people; it is difficult to become stronger by outputting worthless content. Go big.
Exhibition organization: domestic exhibition, how about quantity and quality?
The Foshan Ceramics Expo is held twice a year in the spring and autumn, including the Ceramic Equipment and Materials Exhibition, the Ceramic Products Exhibition, the Guangzhou Design Week, the Construction Expo, the Canton Fair, etc., with an average of one exhibition per month, and that only includes those in Guangdong. Major ceramic production areas across the country hold professional ceramic exhibitions almost every year to provide platform support for ceramic companies to promote investment and showcase their talents. But among so many exhibitions, it is hard to say which one is considered international, which one is comparable to foreign exhibitions, and which one has the greatest impact on upstream and downstream enterprises and dealers.
Nowadays, China’s ceramic products have many types, good quality, and advanced ceramic production technology and equipment. Many foreign companies and foreign businessmen are optimistic about the Chinese ceramic market. Why can’t the exhibition say which one is better? Are the products on display too homogeneous? Or is the exhibition display too ordinary and uncreative? Or is there too much marketing content in domestic exhibitions and too little design and display content?
What domestic ceramic exhibitions show to the outside world is the excellent appearance of Chinese ceramic enterprises. How to attract the attention of more domestic and foreign manufacturers and consumers and whether the focus of the display is wrong will take time to slowly explore. .
"It's too hard for me" is a very popular phrase recently. Mr. Zhong Tao said here that everyone is having a hard time, not to attackEveryone, this is not to create a negative atmosphere. But I want to tell everyone that China has a long history. Even in the most difficult moments, the country and nation still remember the importance of unity and cooperation.
Manufacturers cooperate and make progress together. “Empowering dealers” is a term that appears most frequently when referring to manufacturer relationships in recent years. Empowerment should not only strengthen advertising and provide terminal training to improve dealers’ service awareness. At present, traditional retailing is difficult to do in this market, and dealers need to go out of their stores and find more sales channels. There are many people who hit a wall. How manufacturers help, guide, and bridge the gap is very important.
In addition, the ceramic industry has a wide industrial chain, one link after another, independent of each other, and also involved in pros and cons. In the past, front-end raw material suppliers were relatively scattered and lacked supervision. However, in order to make the industry develop more orderly and efficiently, it is very important to restrain themselves and improve their quality. The media industry is a back-end output, using paper and pen as a fighting tool. Weak words can also become sharp guns and cannons, and we will work together for the development of the industry.
No matter which aspect it is, working together is always stronger than going it alone. When you put it into practice, you will find that the situation is far from as bad as imagined.
