Mid-Year 2007 Stone Imports: Topping Off
Maturity always sounds like a great thing … until you get there.
The U.S. dimensional-stone market may face that feeling in 2007, according to mid-year import statistics, with demand leveling off with either oh-so-slight growth or a small decline among various stone types.
Two of the hottest stone groups for import in recent years – granite and travertine – will cool off from a torrid growth rate. Marble demand appears healthy, but dockworkers won’t be working as hard moving slate through ports-of-entry.
The data on stone imports already shows a flattening of the growth curve, when compared to the last five years. Unless demand grows for stone at an unusually high rate – something that’s unlikely to happen, given the economy and lower housing starts – 2007 dimensional-stone imports could fail to set the usual record high.
The bottom’s not falling out of the stone market; it’s more a case of supply and demand finding a constant cruising altitude. Growth won’t be at the frantic pace of the early 2000s, but the calmer market should allow the industry to catch a collective breath.
PERILS OF PREDICTION
Forecasting market trends is, no matter how exhaustive the research, still a guessing game. Trying to figure out the final numbers on 2007, based on a half-year’s worth of import-stone data, can be risky. However, it’s worth a try.
The movement of dimensional stone into the United States is the important – if not only – way to draw a bead on market performance. For one thing, the statistics collected by the U.S. Customs Bureau are the sole reliable public source of monthly information for gauging stone demand.
While the size of the import sector can be disputed – it’s been pegged by researchers between 75 percent and 90 percent of domestic use – it’s big enough to show general dimensional-stone demand and value. The dominance of import stone in the top-demand and top-dollar fields of countertops and interior walls/flooring makes it a good indicator of the market.
Trying to get a handle on 2007’s possible market performance by factoring in general economic data, such as the inflation rate or new housing stars, can be timely but deadly. Stone sales bucked a number of trends in the past 10 years, such as getting less expensive in price when values are adjusted for inflation. Instead, let’s take an historical look at import growth rates for various stone categories.
To get a benchmark, I took the past five full years of data – from 2002-2006 – and developed totals for January-June and July-August for each year. That revealed an average half-year import rate that could be applied to the first six months of 2007. (For example, using a five-year average, 44.89 percent of slate is imported in the first half of the year.)
