Anil Taneja,
Director, LITOSonline.com
In an uncertain, fast changing world where business models of entire industries are disrupted and become outdated in no time, it is natural that a similar phenomenon is also taking place in the natural stone industry.
Professionals often tend to use the word 'crisis' when describing a situation. Perhaps a better word to describe the situation of the stone industry would be ' in transition'. Natural stone industry has always been an intrinsic part of human civilisation right from the beginning, but it has also been evolving over the centuries. The current stage of evolution is not as evident at this stage, but a new transition has already begun.
Let us highlight some of the main disruptions and other forces effecting the industry.
During the last 4 decades there has been a massive increase in development and growth of the industry in many countries with new quarries of a mind boggling variety of natural stones opened, new processing units made with huge investments have come up, and hundreds of thousands of people have found employment throughout the value chain. It was, perhaps, inevitable that after such rapid growth the volatile and changing socio-economic environment along with technological developments lead to a pause in an industry that was becoming bigger and bigger in size, year after year, during the three to four decades.
A CHALLENGING SOCIO-ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT
In just the last decade there have been serious disruptive developments:
1. The pandemic led to a significant decline in business activity which considerably weakened the balance sheets of most companies.
2. Post pandemic there were serious problems of high freight rates, availability of containers, thus creating tremendous pressure on cash flows, and making planning almost impossible. These problems continue as of the month of July 2026, in large part due to the ongoing war in the Gulf.
3. Over the last 15 years technological advances have led to appearance of big format porcelain in the market, the result of which has been serious market share lost by the natural stone in many applications where natural stone used to be the obvious choice.
4. Changing demographics has led to a serious shortage of skilled labour, especially in the developed countries. While automation in the industry has accelerated, not everything in natural stone can be automated. Expensive labour ended up putting additional pressure on margins throughout the value-added chain.
NEW TRENDS AS A RESULT OF DISRUPTIONS
1. Partly as a result of oversupply in the market and fierce competition from alternative materials, many companies are nowadays experimenting with new textures in stone and are discovering that interior designers and architects love this ' new look'. These textures, especially in 3D, have succeeded in differentiating natural stone from the alternatives aesthetically and are creating a new dynamism in demand for stone, especially in decoration.
2 Due to logistical issues, supply disruptions and uncertainty of supply, many architects are reluctant to specify materials located geographically in far away countries. They fear that projects may get delayed and prices increase beyond what was budgeted. Locally sourced materials are often preferred, or the specifiers insist the imported materials should already be there in the country where the project is being executed. From globalisation to localisation or regionalisation, this seems to be the defensive reaction the world over as a way to reduce risk.
3. Natural stone is increasingly perceived to be even more than before as a premium material by specifiers and is almost always the preferred choice in luxury projects, or where price is a secondary consideration. In commercial projects where deadlines and tight budgets are often key criteria, or where homes and renovation is done for the purpose of reselling, artificial materials have gained market share. This also means even the lowest priced natural stone sometimes loses out to low priced artificial materials. The effective consequence of this trend is overall market demand for natural stone is somewhat reduced. Use of granite, for example, is increasingly limited to exteriors, except, of course, for unique, exotic stones which are the material of choice in high end decoration.
4. While much has been written about sustainability and how natural stone is the most sustainable material, the reality is when it comes to decision time, the specifiers, by and large, consider it to be a criterion of minor importance, especially when price is the criteria most important. Far too often lip service is paid to sustainability, but other factors prevail. In public sector projects it is true that the architects have shown more sensitive to the criteria of sustainability and this argument ends up favouring natural stone.
5. New applications in natural stone are being developed by some companies, but they have not yet reached a critical mass in terms of volume. The tendency, generally speaking, is to consider them as niche products. 'Interesting, but not which provides enough business' seems to be the attitude. The focus of the industry people still remains on maximising return on legacy investments and there is often a reluctance to come out of the comfort zones. The smaller sized companies, or those where the owners are relatively young in age, have been bolder in experimenting in new applications, they are making better use of the modern CNC machines and the new possibilities offered. New applications can mean furniture, products like dining tables, coffee tables with high design component, furniture for exteriors. kitchen cabinets, wine racks, loungers, cupboards, etc.
6. For more than a decade since 2010, it seemed that colour beige was getting out of fashion and replaced by white/grey and other light shades. Perhaps a new generation of specifiers entering the professions were looking for something new.
But during the last three years beige has come back in fashion, and anecdotal evidence suggests darker colours are also becoming popular again. Brown, green, even red coloured stones, are finding greater market acceptance. Travertine has always been popular.
CONCLUSION
In a very challenging business environment just about any business model has to constantly adapt and companies are forced to continually re-invent themselves. Ultimately a new business model develops a critical mass and becomes mainstream. During the last 3 to 4 decades the natural stone industry grew considerably in size mostly on the back of producing slabs. The language, too, was ' industrial,'- growth measured in cubic metres extracted, square metres produced, volume of exports in tons, etc. The industry is now returning to a language more appropriate to its character and its history- that of craftsmanship, creativity, value addition, and, above all, uniqueness, not just the raw material but also the finished product. More authentic, natural of course, something with which human beings intuitively empathise, and closer to the human spirit of imagination and the intrinsic, restless desire to create something new.
That transition, silent, often invisible, but unstoppable, is now going on in the natural stone industry.
