Article/Zencan
A
At the beginning of June, summer is full of vitality.
Judging from the situation in Foshan, Guangdong, many communities and offices no longer need to take body temperature. Kindergartens have been back for six days, and primary and secondary schools have been back for more than 20 days... The earliest resumption of work in the ceramic industry has been four months now. Got it!
Everything seems to be pointing to one point: the domestic COVID-19 epidemic will eventually pass, and the impact on people's lives and all walks of life will gradually subside. In this environment, the ceramic industry has begun to recover, and more and more ceramic companies are seeing normal sales. According to the author's understanding, the sales performance of individual ceramic companies in May even exceeded the same period in 2019.
Will the ceramic industry really experience an outbreak after the epidemic? The answer is yes and no.
B
The reason why we say yes is because the demand for ceramic tiles delayed by the epidemic will gradually be released and form a small peak within a certain period of time.
On June 1, Tmall’s “618” and JD.com’s “618” started at the same time. The former’s home decoration brand sales in the first hour exceeded last year’s entire day, and the latter’s home furnishing category’s first-hour transaction volume increased by 150% year-on-year.
On these two platforms, various types of home decoration and building materials products, including ceramic tiles, have experienced an outbreak, demonstrating the retaliatory growth in decoration demand after the epidemic. This is just as some industry leaders have judged before. The epidemic will only delay but not cancel the demand for decoration. Yesterday's consumption delay will definitely lead to today's performance explosion.
The steady recovery in sales performance of many ceramic companies since April is the most powerful proof of the continuous release of demand for ceramic tiles.
C
The reason why I say negative is because not every ceramic company can usher in an outbreak after the epidemic, and some of them may still be in the "post-epidemic era" "Was knocked out.
First of all, leaving aside the epidemic, in recent years, under the impact of overcapacity, shrinking demand, consumption upgrades, channel fission, environmental protection and other unfavorable factors, the reshuffle of ceramic enterprises and their dealers has further intensified, with the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker. The two-level differentiation pattern has become increasingly obvious.
That is to say, under the same market environment, some ceramic companies bucked the trend and rose, and their performance continued to grow, while some ceramic companies continued to decline, and their performance continued to decline. To put it bluntly, even if there is no epidemic, the ceramic industry will continue to continue the situation of "some are happy and some are sad" since 2015, especially since 2018. I am afraid that it will never be the same in the future. There will no longer be the "Hello, I'm good, everyone is good" market situation like before 2015.
Secondly, competition in the ceramic industry will become more intense after the epidemic, and the living environment faced by most ceramic companies will become even worse. This is mainly reflected in two aspects.
First, production capacity has increased instead of falling during the government-led process of phasing out backward production capacity.
On the one hand, as leading companies develop and grow, green and intelligent production lines are gradually increasing, and the production capacity of the entire ceramic industry is still expanding. For example, Sichuan Longchang is cooperating with Chongqing Rongchang Guangfu Park to plan, declare, and jointly build the area. The "Ceramic Capital of China (Western China)" with an area of 17.74 square kilometers. On the other hand, as the government's environmental protection requirements for the ceramic industry become increasingly strict, many ceramic companies' production lines have already been shut down or "coal-to-gas" rectification. However, under the impact of the sudden epidemic, a number of mid- to low-end Production capacity is making a comeback. For example, a large number of ceramic companies in Jiangxi production areas that have closed down or have been suspended for many years are coming back to life.
Second, the consumer demand for ceramic tiles is polarized.
The two-level differentiation pattern of ceramic enterprises and their dealers mentioned above is closely related to this. After the epidemic, high-income people will pay more attention to home quality, and ceramic companies with better products, brands and services will have more market; people whose income has been affected may reduce decoration requirements and choose lower-priced ceramic tiles. This situation is bound to further intensify the polarization between ceramic enterprises and their dealers. Head brands will take the opportunity to develop, while intermediate brands will either significantly increase their investment to improve their brand influence, marketing power and comprehensive service capabilities, or they will infinitely reduce profits and sink to the low-end market. As a result, market competition will become more intense and price wars will become more brutal.
By the time the demand for ceramic tiles suppressed by the epidemic is released, the situation in the ceramic industry will be unprecedentedly severe.
D
Of course, this does not mean that small and medium-sized ceramic enterprises will definitely have no future.
Li Zhilin, chairman of Jianyi Marble Ceramics, recently made a statement saying, Although resource dividends, policy benefits and incremental market dividends have gradually disappeared, value-added dividends and people's hearts dividends are slowly arrival.
"With the continuous development of the national economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, consumers will have higher and higher requirements for products and services. This is value-added."
"Tiles are low-frequency consumption and high-frequency use products. When customers buy ceramic tiles to decorate their houses, they are as cautious as marrying a wife or a daughter, but they don't know much about it. We dug it before There are many traps for customers, which leads to customers' distrust of the brand. Therefore, the biggest operating cost of the company is not "coal-to-gas", but that we are far away from customers and consumers do not trust us enough. If anyone can break through this. Gain the trust of consumers and you will definitely become a leader in the future.”
To grasp the value-added dividend and the popular dividend, we must enhance brand value and premium capabilities on the basis of good products. This is true not only in the ceramic industry, but also in all walks of life.
In order to enhance brand value and premium capabilities, ceramic companies must not only build brand awareness and influence, and shape the brand into a "person" with flesh and blood, emotion and personality through brand personalization and personification, but also use brand-new User thinking replaces past product thinking, and we provide down-to-earth services to dealers, engineering customers, and especially users.
