Covid-19 is finally making an impact on hard-surface imports to the United States, as pre-lockdown shipments are cleared from ports-of-entry. Data for the month of May 2020, as reported in the latest edition of Hard-Surface Report, shows the flow of materials coming to the USA is slowing down … but not from all the players.

300 HSRLogo 1Let’s take quartz surfaces. The 7.4 million ft2 entering the United States this May was down by not quite half -- 47.8%, to be exact – from the same time last year. This May’s volume is also a 26.5% drop from April this year.

In year-to-year comparisons of major quartz-slab exporters to the United States, Turkey took the biggest drop in May, falling 81.6% from 2019. Sector leader India, with 1.2 million ft2, saw a 66% decline, and Spain shipped just a bit more than 1 million ft2 and fell behind 2019 totals by 59.7%

Not every exporting country saw slab traffic drop, though. Vietnam’s 1.1 million ft2 this May showed a 61% increase from last year, and Israel boosted year-to-year shipments in May by 15% while coming very, very close to a million square feet entering the United States that month.

You’ll get all the latest import numbers on all the materials in Hard Surface Report. Discover for yourself!