RAK Ceramics sells more than 50m pieces of bathware

Dubai: RAK Ceramics has now sold more than 50 million pieces of bathware to date. The company has been in production for 20 years.

RAK Ceramics sold 1,050,000 pieces of bathware worldwide in the last quarter of 2012, an increase from one million pieces during the corresponding time in 2011, according to Abdullah Massaad, CEO of RAK Ceramics.

They recorded Dh93 million in global sales of bathware items in the last quarter of 2012, up around five per cent from Dh90 million from the same time in 2011.

While there is a growing demand for bathware items, ceramic tiles are driving sales in terms of volume.

RAK Ceramics records around Dh3.3 billion in annual revenue, out of which bathware items account for Dh370 million. The rest is attributed to tiles, Massaad said.

“Still, bathware is a strong component of our business,” he said.

“We are always trying to increase capacity by upgrading our facilities and modernising our plants,” told Gulf News.

The ceramics manufacturer started their first tiles plant in Ras Al Khaimah in 1991, and has since expanded to open 10 tiles and two bathware manufacturing plants in the country. They have also gone international with five plants in China, India, Sudan, Bangladesh and Iran.

RAK Ceramics supplies more than 160 countries, with the UAE, Gulf, Africa and Europe as their main target markets for bathware products. Europe accounts for 40 per cent of bathware sales, and 25 per cent of ceramic tiles sales, he said.

The company produces 1.2 per cent — 117 million square metres — of total global consumption of tiles of around 10 billion square metres, Massaad said.

Sarah Algethami is a trainee at Gulf News.