Market Report 2020 for China Ceramic Wall Panel & Building Components

Up to now, there are 45 foamed ceramic production lines in China. According to incomplete statistics of "CERAMIC INFORMATION", there are about 25 manufacturers producing ceramic partition wall panel and related products like ceramic decorative art line, ceramic decorative waist line, decorative cornice, decorative window cover etc., with 39 production lines totally, and the daily production capacity is about 11,220 cubic meters, there are about 6 manufacturers producing integrated thermal insulation and decoration boards (like Ceramic Integrated Panel), with 6 production lines totally, and the daily production capacity is about 15,000 square meters.

The higher cost of unit foamed ceramic product seriously restricts the rapid expansion of its market share. The explosive development of China's prefabricated buildings may help the foamed ceramic products to quickly open the market gap. But in 2020, influenced by COVID-19, some manufacturers have "stranded" the planning of the new foamed ceramic production line.

Between the year 2018 and 2019, 16 new foamed ceramic production lines were launched, a bigger number .

Chinese technical research on foamed ceramic boards began in the 1990s, and then remained in the experimental stage for more than ten years. Until around 2000, foamed ceramic products were industrialized and mass produced. However, at that time, the main raw material for production was glass solid waste, which could not be called foamed ceramics in a strict sense.

Later, coal gangue and fly ash became the raw materials for the production of foamed ceramic boards. At that time, the positioning of the market was still not clear, and the production and marketing enterprises of foamed ceramics developed in the direction of low-density and low-strength small thermal insulation materials.

According to the magazine named "CERAMIC INFORMATION", in the early stage of development, foamed ceramics have been in a state of "no one cares about ". Until around 2016, foam ceramic manufacturers began to carry out strategic cooperation with real estate developers, and the market was gradually opened. The inventory that had been overstocked for a long time was quickly emptied in 2017, and even fell into a state of out of stock.

In the year 2017, the Ministry of housing and urban rural development issued the "13th five year plan for prefabricated building": the proportion of prefabricated buildings in new buildings will reach more than 15% in 2020 and more than 30% in 2025.

Some industry professional people predict that in 2020, Chinese prefabricated buildings are expected to exceed 800 million square meters, and the market scale will reach 1.6 trillion RMB based on 2000 RMB per square meter.

Under the guidance of "13th five year plan for prefabricated building" , many industry insiders believe that foamed ceramic partition board has become the first choice of health, energy conservation and environmental protection materials for prefabricated buildings with the reasons of its advantages of light weight, high strength, zero water absorption, fire prevention and sound insulation.

It is reported that in the second half of 2017, the production scheduling of some foamed ceramic partition board manufacturers has been arranged to the end of 2018.

From the year 2018 to 2019, Chinese foamed ceramic boards will also usher in a period of rapid development, with a sharp increase in production lines. In two years, the number of production lines has increased by 16, equivalent to the total growth of the past 10 years.

According to the incomplete statistics of "CERAMIC INFORMATION", there are about 31 enterprises producing foamed ceramics in China. Among them, the production of foamed ceramic boards by ceramic enterprises is rare, there are only 5 ceramic factories, including Jinyitao, Guangdong Ruilang, Guangdong Huatao, Inner Mongolia Jianneng Xinghui and Baofeng Shengnuo, and the production amount is accounting for only 16%; five ceramic factories have 10 production lines of foamed ceramic board, accounting for 22% of the total production line.

In recent years, in the process of the development of foamed ceramics, both production equipments and production technology are developing steadily.

Dai Yuefei, domestic marketing director of Foshan DLT Technology Co., Ltd, introduced that in the field of foamed ceramic boards, relying on years of experience accumulation, the whole line technology of DLT represents the advanced level of the industry. No matter the success rate of production, product excellence rate, production line stability and production energy consumption, it is at the leading level of the industry. In particular, the application of three-layer kilns has significantly improved the single line output, which is very clear that the unit cost of the product is significantly reduced.

According to the current situation, the foaming production line is equipped with two types of kilns, one is tunnel kiln, the other is roller kiln.

Up to now, the output of some single lines has increased several times than that of the original production lines.

According to the marketing director in charge of Ruitao kiln, Ruitao company could provide solutions for tunnel kiln and roller kiln. Among them, there are many implementation cases of three-layer tunnel kiln. At present, the daily output of tunnel kiln has steadily exceeded 300 cubic meters. At the same time, the design and structure of column and beam have been optimized, and the stability of kiln car has been further improved, effectively avoiding the "accident" of kiln collapse.

High unit cost seriously restricts development. A few years ago, the market of foamed ceramic boards was really hot, and even fell into the situation of "short supply". However, in order to further expand the market share of foamed ceramics, it is very difficult to transition from "high-end products" to "Popularization".

According to the people familiar with the foamed ceramic board market, the biggest problem of the development of foamed ceramics at this stage is the higher unit cost, especially the higher fuel cost. "The unit cost is more than 1000 RMB per cubic meter. Compared with traditional cement mortar materials, the unit cost of foamed ceramics is at least 30% or even 50% higher."

At present, the biggest problem for large-scale application of foamed ceramic board was the higher cost, and it is impossible for foamed ceramic board to be widely used if the cost couldn't reduced a lot. According to the people familiar with the matter, it is difficult to popularize foamed ceramics in real estate projects, because compared with other traditional building materials, foamed ceramic wall panels are not only costly, but also difficult for a single enterprise to meet the supply demand in the short term.

Generally speaking, the high unit cost seriously restricts the further development of foamed ceramic boards.

At present, there are two ways to reduce the unit cost of foamed ceramic products, one is to reduce the cost of energy consumption, the other is to increase the output.

Wu Junliang, the brand marketing director of Foshan DLT Technology Co., Ltd said that, in order to reduce the production cost of foamed ceramic boards, DLT mainly provides three-layer production kilns for enterprises, in the next step , DLT may make five layer kilns.  One hand, it is to increase production, on the other hand, it is to reduce unit fuel cost.

According to "CERAMIC INFORMATION", Inner Mongolia Jianneng Xinghui Ceramics Co., Ltd. has built the largest production base of foamed ceramics in China, with two three-layer tunnel kilns and two roller kilns, with a designed daily production capacity of 900 cubic meters. Compared with other peers, Inner Mongolia Jianneng Xinghui Ceramics Co., Ltd. has the largest production capacity of foamed ceramic wall panel.

The Sales director of Inner Mongolia Jianneng Xinghui introduced that "Inner Mongolia Jianneng Xinghui foamed ceramics not only has large production scale, but also Inner Mongolia is rich in tailings, fly ash and other raw materials, the cost of natural gas is only 1.9 RMB per cubic meters, and the cost of local industrial power and water is lower than other production areas. In general, Inner Mongolia Jianneng Xinghui foamed ceramics has obvious unit cost advantage and relatively stronger market competitiveness. "

Where is the future market for foamed ceramic products? Many people in this industry believe that the construction of Fire God Mountain Hospital and Thunder God Mountain Hospital  is actually a good entry point for foamed ceramic wall panels. However, it is difficult for foamed ceramics manufacturers to deliver so many products in just a few days. Moreover, the unit cost of foamed ceramics is very high, which is not affordable by many developers and builders.

Therefore, many people in the industry believe that the development of foamed ceramics should not only be partition wall panel and thermal insulation boards, but should further broaden the application field, like the deep processing products, for example, to make the ceramic decorative art lines, ceramic waist line, ceramic window cover, ceramic cornice, decorative carving board from the ceramic wall panels .

According to people familiar with this matter, at present, Liaoning Hanking is studying " foamed ceramic exterior wall panel ". In short, it is to compound two pieces of foam ceramics and pour cement foam particles into the middle, so the cost is relatively low. Relatively speaking, it is easier to further open the market.