NAME: Carmen María García
COMPANY: MÁRMOLES SOL, Madrid (Spain)
ACTIVITY: wholesaler
1.- What percentage if your business is currently in natural Stone, quartz and porcelain?:
Natural stone .80 %
Quartz 10 %
Porcelain 10 %
2.- Which product is growing?
Natural Stone
3.- In natural stone, which are the most popular stones in your business?
Surya, Snowflakes, Kohara, Black Premium (granites) and Bianco Milano (quartzite).
NAME: Rogerio Moutinho
COMPANY: MGLW, London, U.K.
ACTIVITY: Wholesaler
1.- What percentage if your business is currently in natural stone, quartz and porcelain?
Natural Stone (marble/granite/limestone/slate): 75%, of which 50% is marble
Quartz engineered: 15 %
Ceramic: 5 %
2.-.Which product is growing?
This year we feel that quartz will grow with us more than ceramic but both materials still have potential. Granite and quartzite seem to be stable but with a slight uptick
3.- In natural stone, which are the most popular stones in your business?
White / light marbles from Italy, Greece and Vietnam are still strong in demand and also limestone from Oman, Portugal and Turkey.
NAME: Jos Simons
COMPANY: Michel Oprey & Beisterveld, Netherlands
ACTIVITY: Wholesaler
1.- What percentage of your business is currently in natural Stone, quartz and porcelain?
Natural Stone: 40%
Quartz : 5%
Porcelain / Ceramics: 55%
In Indoor and Slabs departments porcelain/ceramics are now the biggest part of the sales. Natural Stone is mostly for outdoors.
2.- Which product is growing?
Porcelain/Ceramics are still growing and, unfortunately, natural stones is still decreasing. Quartz was stable last year but tendency is that the sales will decrease because worries are growing on health issues (silicose, (toxic) resins).
It will be very important to communicate on the uniqueness of natural stones
3.- In natural Stone, which are the most popular stones in your business?
The greyish and black granite slabs are still moving well and in serious quantities. Exotic marbles and Quarzites are growing, but volumes are not very big yet. In flooring it is mainly light greyish to blackish and taupe/browinsh marbles and limestones that are still the best movers. Beige colors are not falling further in sales for now, but it is too early to speak of a recovery. Outdoor tiles (2 and 3 cm thick) have been blown away almost completely by thick ceramic tiles. Ítems such as dry walls, block steps and pallisades are doing better as there is no serious ceramic alternative (yet).
Volume materials for public works are shifting back increasingly from China towards Portugal, Turkey and Spain. Main reasons are the rise in prices of Chinese materials in the last years and the fact that the quarries of some of the best selling materials have been shut down.
NAME: Saket Hans
COMPANY: OHM International, USA
ACTIVITY: Wholesaler
1.- What percentage if your business is currently in natural stone, quartz and porcelain?
Natural stone .60 %
Quartz: 37 %
Porcelain 3 %
2.- Which product is growing?
The demand for quartz keeps on increasing. Porcelain is not growing as fast.
3.- In natural stone, which are the most popular stones in your business?
We are pushing high end colors. White Spring, Taj Mahal, Shadow Storm and White Ices (all of them from Brazil) and Fantasy Brown (India).
