Spanish sanitaryware maker Roca expects growing demand for luxury bathrooms

Roca Sanitario SA, the Spanish sanitaryware manufacturer, said the number of outlets selling its products in China are expanding at the rate of around 50 a year, mostly in third-tier cities.

Emilio Salazar, its national managing director, said the quickly expanding operation in China now represents a little more than 10 percent of group revenue, and that is expected to grow as the standards of living continue to rise.

Salazar admitted, however, that this year its sales forecast had been cut, due to delayed completion dates at some major housing projects.

"We expect the property market to pick up during the second half of 2015. I currently estimate we have a 12 percent market share of the higher end of the sanitaryware sector," he said.

One of the company's focuses at the moment is the shift in demand by customers for what the industry calls "smart sanitaryware".

"The bathroom space is under a great transformation, just as almost everything around us is. Electronic products are becoming more important in the bathroom and Roca has gone to great lengths to adjust to that and provide consumers with products that meet their needs," he said.

"We are completely renewing our Multiclin (advance shower toilet) product line this year with 19 new models, and are already starting to see the fruits of this great effort in terms of orders.

"During the first half there was a big increase in demand for electronic products and we are already increasing capacity at our factory in Taiwan to match that."

Roca has 10 factories in China and this year Salazar said it has invested in the expansion of two, in Tangshan, Hebei province, and Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

Next year the company also plans to start work on a new shower-enclosure factory in Suzhou, as well as open a Roca-branded showroom in Beijing.

Roca sanitaryware has actually been sold in China for years, but its customer base has changed dramatically in recent times.

"Over the past decade, we have mainly been offering our products to wealthy consumers who were buying a new home. They were normally more than 45 years old, and appreciated European brands and European designs because they had traveled there," he said

"But in recent years our end of the market has been expanding fast, and increasingly it's younger couples or newly weds in their early 30s."