Mr. Jiang Introduced The Sales of Imola Ce-Ramics in China

Mr. Jiang, a dealer of Imola Ceramics in Changsha, introduced the sales of Imola Ce-ramics in China were not very satisfied at the beginning. At that time big-size tiles were popular in China, while Imola Ceram-ics mainly dealt with small-sized ceramics with relatively high prices. In the first six years, the sales were not satisfactory. The sales volume exceeded RMB 20 million un-til 2005. After that, the sales networking was nationwide covered. The sales volume began to rise sharply due to the participation of dealers in great numbers. The sales volume was basically doubled every year. In 2010, it had been reached RMB 360 million which was recoup funds. The figure might have al-ready hit RMB 500 million to RMB 600 mil-lion if the real sales volume was calculated. Imola Ceramics has won the favor from many fashion-pursuing customers with its European pastoral style. As a brand targeted at medium and high-end consumer groups, the price is around 400 Yuan/m2. This price orientation is also very popular among the consumer groups. Mr. Jiang was very opti-mistic about the market prospect this year. He estimated the market growth rate would be at least 20% this year. If purely viewed from the sales statistics data this year, the growth rate may reach 50%. Nowadays, the fast developing cities in China like Chang-sha have emerged in large numbers. "Actually, many Italian manufacturers are dedicated to differentiate their products. For example, the orientation of Imola Ceram-ics products is different compared to the other domestic enterprises. Italian products have distinctive characteristics including product design and process. The price war is rare, and therefore the prices are very favorable. "Mr. Jiang also believed Italy had more high-end products like some manmade products with rich historical and cultural deposits. Compared with Italian brands, there are fewer Spanish brands appearing in China, and the information about Spanish ceramics is very limited. When mentioning ceramic brands of Spain, some Chinese consumers are only familiar with PORCELANOSA, AZULEV, etc. Ms. Xie who has been en-gaged in Spanish ceramics trade for years told the reporter, "Many people know AZULEV. It is very popular in cities like Beijing and Shanghai. " Ms. Xie thinks Spanish ceramics are relatively advantaged in manmade ceramics and anisotropic ceramics compared with do-mestic ceramic products. Natucer factory has 12 rollers. Only one or two ceramic tiles are the same among 120 ceramic tiles on aver-age. Besides, they are skilled in making ex-truded tiles. Different shapes of anisotropic tiles can be made with amazing effect after being laid. It is understood that the company of Ms. Xie was an agent of 15 Spanish ce-ramic brands including TAU, Natucer, Fanal, Hispania and Calaf. Currently, the whole high-class sanitary ware products of China are almost occupied by for-eign brands. Be-fore 2003, Kohler was le-ading in the high-end sanitary ware brands in the market of China. From 2003 to 2007, TOTO sud-denly rose and formed a sit-uation of tripartite confrontation of TOTO, Ko-hler and American Standard. At present, the for-eign brands active in Chinese market mainly include TOTO and Inrx of Japan, American Standard, Kohler, Moen and Delta of U. S., Hansgrohe, Duravit, Roy and Grohe of Ger-many, Roca of Spain, etc. Nowadays, an increasing number of Chi-nese people begin to use high-end brands. On the 11th of June, Berlin Daily declared that af-ter referring to the latest report released by World Luxury Association that the total con-sumption of luxury market of Chinese Main-land last year already reached USD 10.7 bil-lion, taking up 25% of the total global luxury consumption. It is expected that China will re-place Japan to become the largest luxury con-sumer country in the world in 2012. Besides first-tier cities, luxury brands has actively expanded to second-tier and third-tier cities in recent years including many business and leisure tour destinations like Xi'an of Shaanxi Province, Taiyuan of Sh-anxi Provinc-e, Kunming of Yun-nan Province and Hohhot of Inner Mongolia. Burberry, a luxurious fashion brand of UK, turned 50 franchised stores to direct-sale stores in 2010. The company hoped to in-crease the number of stores in China to 100 within five years in January 2011. In 2010, Burberry already entered Taiyuan and Changde, both of which were cities in Cen-tral China. LV also stepped into second-tier and third-tier cities of China like Taiyuan, Hohhot and Urumqi. In the fierce market competition, the high-end brand direction was an inevitable trend in the future market, for high-end mar-ket space boasts huge capacity, large profit space and more wealth to dig. The person in charge of Weimei Group, a high-end ceram-ics manufacturer in China, expressed, "cur-rently, there is still no real high-end brand in ceramics industry. Therefore, the competi-tive pressure is relatively low and it is easily to develop and expand. Despite of coexis-tence of opportunities and risks, it is an in-evitable choice to develop towards a high-end direction. It is much easier to do now than the future. The cost is lower and the chance of success is bigger. " Source: www.fstcb.com