Marker Shares of Ceramic Tiles Companies

At least half a dozen ceramic tiles factories are in the pipeline to enter the market in the next couple of years to grab share from the growing industry.

Already 11 factories are operating in the market that has been growing at about 20 percent rate for the past several years and posts over Tk 1,000 crore annual sales turnover, industry people said.

“Use of tiles is no more a fashion. It's become an essential increasingly being used in urban and semi-urban areas,” said AKM Ziaul Islam, an independent consultant on tiles industry.

The factories in preparation are X Ceramics, Padma, Akij, Tamanna, Aftab and Khaled Corporation, of which X Ceramics is set to launch in July this year.

The rest are developing fast their civil construction and importing capital machinery.

“We are ready to start production in July this year,” said Mazharul Quader, chairman of X Ceramics that will make exterior tiles for the first time in the country. Demand for exterior tiles is met by import as all the existing factories produce interior tiles.

Some existing firms, including RAK and Mir, are also expanding their production base to grip the business from the growth.

According to market study, existing factories produced nearly 322 million square feet (sft) of tiles in 2007, up from 277 million sft a year ago. Production reached 374 million sft in 2008 and it is estimated to grow at 17 percent in 2009 and 2010.

Of the total production in 2007, RAK alone made 74 million sft, followed by China-Bangla, Fu-Wang and Mir each slightly over 30 million sft.


Industry people said history of tiles factories in Bangladesh is not very old. The first factory was set up by Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation, a state-owned enterprise, in 1982. Private sector established the second one, Modhumoti Tiles, in 1988.

The situation started changing rapidly after 2000 when tiles became too cheap to easily replace mosaics.

RAK Ceramics (Bangladesh) Ltd, a UAE-based company set up in 2003, brought a drastic change in the tiles industry and now owns one-fourth of the domestic market share.

Khan Mohammad Iqbal, managing director of forthcoming Padma Ceramics, said he wants to concentrate on manufacturing quality tiles that needs costly machine.

“Civil construction of my factory is going on. I hope to start production by 2010,” he said.

Iqbal Ahmed, MD of Tamanna Tiles, said he is to finish the works for structure by this year.

Ahmed, also a machine supplier for the tiles industry, said the existing companies are increasingly going for expansion to hike production.

AKM Ziaul Islam said sales of the locally produced tiles did not go down even in the past two years, the worst time for the country's construction industry.

He attributed the growth to the demand and low production cost. Gas and labour account for 23 percent and 16 percent respectively of the total production cost, and so Bangladesh has an edge on these inputs over other countries.

Industry people also said Bangladesh has an opportunity to export tiles because the major player, China, is losing advantage to rising production cost.
by- Sajjadur Rahman