StatWatch: First Quarter ’16 Foray
By Emerson Schwartzkopf
At the end of 2015, U.S. dimensional-surface imports looked … well, to be polite, a mess.
Granite shipments took a double-digit dive at year’s end, due mainly to Brazil’s ever-weakening economy. Other surfaces maintained healthy growth rates, led by quartz-slab’s bountiful 55% increase from 2014.
Since first-quarter imports tend to start very slow, Stone Update took a break from posting monthly data to get a better idea of overall trends. To be honest, we decided to give granite — the key indicator, for many observers, of industry health — a rest cure.
The result: Granite remains in a trade funk, although things appear to be brighter south of the Equator. The rest of the sector offers more questions than directions, with marble up slightly, quartz slabs slowing growth a bit (but still growing), travertine and other calcareous slouching through the winter, and other stone scoring impressive gains.
GRANITE
After watching worked (cut, one-side-finished) granite take a big tumble at the end of last year, the 2.9% decline in volume from first-quarter 2015 to this year’s January-March is more of a relief. The 348,458 metric tons (MT) received in the United States doesn’t show total health, but it’s a recovery.
Given Brazil’s big dip in U.S.-bound shipments as 2015 ended, the 3% quarter-to-quarter decline offers signs of a real recovery; in the face of the country’s economic and political woes, along with Olympic hosting problems and the Zika virus, it’s just short of remarkable. China’s 1Q 2015 also offers a big boost, while India traditionally posts weaker granite shipments in any year’s first quarter.
And then there’s Italy. The country that led all suppliers to the United States before the 2000s housing boom continues to drop, with first-quarter shipments falling 20.7% from 2015. For Italy, volume isn’t everything; the customs value-per-ton (VPT) for Italian granite is $1,771.10, while sector leader Brazil shows a $699.42 VPT for its worked granite.
Spain’s good fortune with a 68.6% quarter-to-quarter rise this year, meanwhile, comes at a discount. The country’s VPT for granite this January-March is a well-below-industry average of $544.32.
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MARBLE
Marble finished 2015 flat, with growth of less than 1% last December. A 4.8% quarterly gain this January-March is a healthy start in what’s typically the slowest months of the year.
The race for top exporter to the United States appears to be over, as Italy maintains its strength in shipments. Turkey, meanwhile, begins 2016 as it ended last year, with U.S.-bound worked-marble volume some 25% in year-to-year comparisons.
Any of Turkey’s slack is made up by others, including China, India and Brazil. Spain’s shipments continue to soften.
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QUARTZ SLABS
Does a a 36% year-to-year gain qualify as a sign of weakness? While quartz’s roller-coaster rise evened off a bit in this year’s first quarter, it’s not ailing … but growth likely won’t be as spectacular as the past few years.
China continues to flood the U.S. market with slabs this year, although not quite at the double-time pace of 2015. India’s on-again, off-again pace of quartz shipments is definitely on at a nearly 150% gain from 1Q2015, Spain improved by half (53%) from the same time last year; Turkey’s astounding 1900% increase is due more to very small shipments in 1Q2015 than a major business uptick.
The watch on Caesarstone is bound to intensify as the company’s CEO and U.S. business head both left the company, and the reduction in 2016 Israeli quartz imports may again become a pain in the shorts (stock-wise, at least). Whether that’s in response to reduced sales or increased output at its U.S. plant in Georgia is still unclear.
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TRAVERTINE
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OTHER CALCAREOUS
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OTHER STONE
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