Russia straddles the Eurasian continent, the whole country's culture is Western, and its unique geographical location and cold climate have had a profound impact on Russia's construction, ceramics and decoration industries.
Recently, the research team of Taocheng Daily and Foshan Tanzhou Ceramics Exhibition came to Russia to investigate and visit the building materials market in Moscow and local representative ceramic brands and enterprises.
It is understood that there are currently more than 20 ceramic factories in Russia, with an annual production capacity of about 200 million m. In terms of the market, India, China, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Iran and local ceramic tile products are highly competitive, while ceramic tiles also face competition with competing materials such as wood flooring, paints and wallpaper.
Is there still a chance in the Russian market?Let's look down.
There are not many ceramic tile enterprises in Russia, there are more than 20 ceramic factories in the country, about 70 production lines, mainly using the small output model of Europe, and the daily production capacity of a single line is about 8000m.
At present, the largest ceramic tile enterprise in Russia is Kerama Marazzi, which belongs to the American Mohoek Group. In Russia there are 2 tile factories and 1 sanitary ware factory. The annual output of ceramic tiles exceeds 40 million m2, accounting for about 20% of the annual production capacity of ceramic tiles in Russia.
Due to the long-term use of the European system, Russian ceramic enterprises are Xi to the standards of European equipment, so the parameters, manufacturing accuracy, installation, maintenance, control and other requirements of the equipment are very high. If China's upstream merchants want to enter the Russian market, they must first meet European standards. Affected by this, the current sales of domestic equipment materials in Russia are not much.
Russia has abundant oil and gas resources, and the energy cost of all ceramic factories is very advantageous, and natural gas** is around RMB 1-2 m. Due to the cold climate, the temperature in Russia is very low for nearly half a year (from November to the next month), so the factories have heating, and the gas is cheap, so it will be heated all year round. Another effect of this is that Russian ceramic factories do not stop production throughout the year, and only stop production when the production line needs to be overhauled.
We visited several representative building materials markets in Moscow, where there are two types of building materials stores: one is the building materials store, which has stores for various home improvement materials;The other is a building materials supermarket, where many brands of ceramics and bathroom products are displayed in a centralized manner. Either way, it is mainly displayed on the display rack, and there are relatively few scene space displays.
The products in the building materials store are mainly imported bricks, and many brands are the brands of the first merchants, not the brands of the manufacturers. Previously, Italy, Germany and Spain have been the main countries of Russian ceramic products. However, with the withdrawal of some Western European brands from the Russian market, products from India, China and Turkey are now partially replacing the market share of Western European brands.
It has been observed that more than 60% of the tiles on the Russian market are Indian bricks, and Italy, Spain, Turkey, Iran, China and local companies share the remaining share. **In terms of local bricks, the cheapest is the local brick, with a price of about 1,000-2,000 rubles per square meter (about 80-160 yuan);This was followed by Indian bricks and Chinese bricks. around 3000 rubles (about 230 yuan);The price of Spanish bricks is around 5,000-6,000 rubles (about 400-500 yuan);Italian bricks are the most expensive, around 8,000 to 10,000 rubles (about 600-800 yuan).
According to a businessman, most of the Chinese bricks are black, white and gray, and the colors of Indian bricks are much richer in comparison. In addition, Indian bricks are cheaper than China, fast delivery, flexible collection, and low freight costs, China to Russia a container to 6000-9000 US dollars, at present only a few enterprises export products to Russia, which is a major reason for the low market share of Chinese ceramic tiles.
In terms of products, 600 1200 (mm) and 600 600 (mm) specifications are the best-selling tiles, and matte tiles are more popular with consumers than glossy tiles. In terms of color, stone grain and cement are much more frequent than wood grain bricks, and compared with wood grain bricks, wood floors are more suitable for cold Russia and cheaper.
The Russian market for decorative materials is currently recovering. According to Russian media data, the total construction scale of real estate in Russia will reach 1600 million meters, an increase of 8% year-on-year. Among them, residential construction was the main driver, reaching 126.7 billion m;Commercial real estate construction decreased by 12% at 33.6 million m.
According to the "Strategy for the Development of Construction and Residential Public Utilities up to 2030" formulated by Russia**, Russia will support real estate development in terms of loan policies, approval procedures, and the reduction of unfinished projects.
From 2017 to 2022, the volume of imports of building ceramics in Russia increased by 209%。As of 2022, the share of imported porcelain and ceramic tiles is about 23%.
Overall, the Russian ceramic market has potential, but the threshold for entry is also very high, such as the freight cost and tariffs mentioned above, only really powerful companies can gnaw this market.
It is worth mentioning that ceramic tiles are not the main decoration material in Russia. We intuitively see in the building materials store that the number of tile stores is about the same as that of wooden floors, paints, wallpapers, etc. It is understood that most Russians use a lot of materials when decorating, they are Xi to use wooden floors in living rooms and bedrooms, tiles in kitchens and bathrooms, wallpaper and paint on walls, and carpets on the floor. As a result, ceramic tiles face competition from many competing materials in the market.