U.S. Hard-Surface Imports 2021
A Record Haul
At the end of 2020, just about everyone in the hard-surfaces industry wondered if the year’s second half – a time of phenomenal recovery after the worldwide COVID-19 shutdown – was a bubble of pent-up consumer demand or a window on the future. U.S. imports in 2021 show that the recovery in hard surfaces is for real, with year-to-year growth in all sectors in both volume and value. Despite inflation and supply-chain woes, increases in supply and value seemed to belie any serious problems as total customs values for hard surfaces reached a record $5.2 billion dollars. The rising tide, however, didn’t lift all boats equally. There’s a large disparity, for example, from quartz-slab volume to the United States growing by nearly half (49.2%) from 2020 to 2021, while worked granite totaled a 6.5% gain.
What may be more telling, however, are comparisons of 2021 to pre-pandemic years. Line up the tonnage data from last year with the strong post-Great-Recession year of 2017, and some natural-stone sectors are off by more than 20%. Granite’s downturn may be small – less than three percent – but it’s shocking when compared to quartz-slab’s growth of 70.8% (And, remember that 2017 was before the imposition of unfair trade tariffs.) We’ll let the numbers do the talking in the next few pages, showing sector performance and shipments from top exporting countries to the United States. All data is from the records of the U.S. International Trade Commission with analysis by Hard-Surface Report. For import information monthly,, please see the current issue of Hard-Surface report at latest.hardsurfacereport.com.
The Number
$5,210,124,194
Total Customs Value U.S. Imports, Hard-Surfaces Full Year 2021
Definitions
Granite: Dimensional surfaces, at minimum, cut and polished on one side (worked). Marble: Dimensional surfaces, at minimum, cut and polished on one side (worked). May include very small amounts of other calcareous stone defined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as marble. Travertine: Dimensional surfaces, at minimum, cut and polished on one side (worked). Other Calcareous: Dimensional surfaces, at minimum, cut and polished on one side (worked), not otherwise classified as marble or travertine. Slate: Dimensional surfaces, at minimum, cut and polished on one side (worked), not classified as roofing material. Porcelain: Ceramic flags and paving, hearth or wall tiles, of a water absorption coefficient by weight <= 0,5 % (excl. refractory, mosaic cubes and finishing ceramics). Includes tiles and slabs.