A guide to Azerbaijan’s ceramics and bathrooms distributors
Published on 10/05/2016
For ceramics and bathroom exporters, Azerbaijan’s construction sector has offered a tantalising mix over the past decade – a growing population, a strong economy, and local buyers highly receptive to international imports. While oil price troubles have checked growth recently, Baku and Azerbaijan is still a valuable building market with a lot going on, and both residential and commercial projects are in need of international brands that trade on a quality premium.
As part of our
guide to Azerbaijan’s building sector and the opportunities it offers, here is a profile of five leading importers, distributors and retailers in the Azeri ceramics and bathrooms market – contacts that can get you a foothold in the market.
Simfoniya
Simfoniya is more than just a distributor – its 8,000 sqm showroom in Baku is dedicated to a huge range of international suppliers in every area of interior design and decor, from ceramics and bathrooms to wallpaper and interior doors. Not only that, the company offers architecture and interior design planning and material selection for both professional projects and for private customers. This gives it huge clout in Baku and Azerbaijan’s construction sector, providing the brands it stocks with unbeatable promotion in the market.
“When they buy from abroad, Azerbaijani buyers are looking for high-quality tiles,” Fuad Aslanov, manager of Simfoniya’s ceramics department, told Market Insights from Baku in a phone interview. The Simfoniya range certainly helps them find it – some of the brands stocked by the company to meet this demand are Kerama Marazzi, Sintesi Ceramics, Aparici, and dozens more large and small foreign suppliers. Not only that, all products are also available via an online shop for added reach.
Santemax
Santemax retails a healthy range of bathroom ware and ceramics from Spain and Italy, working with both end buyers and professional specifiers – the company actually arranges direct delivery of foreign-made ceramics to builders and professional customers, making it a valuable conduit for companies looking for simpler business in Azerbaijan. The company’s outlet and showroom – known as Ceramic City, and located across the railway track from Trump Tower in Baku – presents collections to buyers and specifiers.
ABC-Keramik
Most of this list has a definite Mediterranean flavour, but ABC-Keramik bucks this trend by specialising in German tiles and ceramic ware – Stroher interior tiles and exterior ceramic facades are represented in Azerbaijan’s building market by this distributor.
Basaran Group
Basaran Group is better known for its shipbuilding and food export services in its native Turkey, but an Azeri arm of the company is another of Baku’s importers, retailers and distributors of ceramic tiles and other products and services for construction.
Seramik Plaza
Seramik Plaza, another Baku-based retailer and distributor, offers Turkish and Iranian ceramics, but its speciality is tiles from Spain – its main brands are the Spanish producers Azteca, El Molino and Keros, putting these manufacturers into projects around Baku.
Looking to forge partnerships in Azerbaijan? Representatives from all these distributors – and many more contacts in the Azeri building sector – choose BakuBuild as the place to find new suppliers from abroad. To find out more about BakuBuild and the Azerbaijani buyers that attend it,
check the event website.