The decorative laminate market is expected to see a lot in 2020. The year 2020 and onwards, arrival of new decorative laminate plants will fall to minimum numbers though change of ownership will happen.The present market has over supply and huge inventory that is choking the money rotation and extending the calculated return to 4-5 months cycle. Year 2020 onwards will be a phase when strong and good brands will tighten their payment cycle, stricter norms for stockiest. In semiorganized category, distributor led working will make way for more of Depot driven working, thus taking service and delivery speed to better levels. There could be higher rewards and benefits in terms of attractive offerings for fast payment in short time in specially HPL. The strong players of semi organized category have already begun tightening the payment cycle in decorative laminate trade that will speed up and be followed by other actively.
The year may see continuation of suffocation in sales and payment cycle that will lead to new investors entering and buying stakes from the old ones. The single press plants will see increased pressure as laminate marketing cost will further increase hence taking expenses to the roof. In time ahead, market will be further pushed towards more of price sensitive offerings in unorganized category where as branded segment will spend more on sweeping the market share. The approval driven demand will escalate due to more commercial projects coming in 2020 and onwards. The market share of organised players is expected to grow this year with deeper penetration and material offerings in varied range along with more of large projects and OEM working gaining momentum.
The market in 2020 will further accelerate towards lower thickness category in retail markets because more improvement is now taking place in lesser thicknesses. There are chances of more thickness categories emerging in 0.7, 0.74, 0.85 and 0.88 type thicknesses just to take some of the market. The increasing availability of 0.9 range will further dent the 1.0 mm market of mid-sized players. The addition of lesser thickness categories will continue to increase inventories in markets hence liquidity crunch will remain a burning issue for unorganized raw material suppliers. Year 2020 will be again ridden by oversupply though market would like to stick with better organized brands who has better policies and supply, not only price.