How to use Compare exporters

Compare exporters puts two or three of the 15 countries with a KEYSTONE. monthly bulletin side by side: how much they export, how they have changed, at what average price, what kind of stone they sell and where to. Use it to get to know a competitor and to compare your country with it, market by market.

Questions it answers:

• Proportionally, does Portugal export more worked stone than Spain?
• Who grew more this year — Italy or Türkiye — and was it in value or in volume?
• In which markets do we compete head-on with Brazil, and at what price does each of us sell?

1. 1Exporter A and Exporter BThe two countries to compare, among the 15 with a monthly bulletin.
2. 2Exporter C (optional)A third country, if you want to compare three at once.
3. 3The result updates by itselfWhen you change a selector, the result changes at once — there is no button. The page address keeps your choices: you can bookmark it or share it with your team.
4. 4Export as PDFThe «Export PDF» button below the selectors downloads the result on screen as a KEYSTONE. report: the choices you made, the tables and the reading notes. Every page carries your name and licence ID. Included in the Data and Professional plans.

1. 1PeriodThe months each country has already published, year to date. If they are not the same, the tool says so: the comparison becomes indicative.
2. 2Exports and change in valueThe value exported in the period, in million USD, and the difference against the same months of the previous year.
3. 3Change in volumeThe same difference, in tonnes. Set against the change in value, it separates the quantity effect from the price effect: value up with volume down means higher prices or a dearer product mix.
4. 4Average price and its changeValue ÷ tonnes, in USD/t. «n.d.» means UN Comtrade estimated the weight of most of that country's exports: the value stands, but the tonnes and the price would not be the country's data.
5. 5Worked stone, share of valueThe part of the value that is worked stone (chapter 68). A high share points to an exporter of finished products.
6. 6Share sold inside the EUThe part of the exports that goes to European Union countries — for any country, member or not.

«Destination markets» is the number of countries each exporter sold to. Further down, the «Product mix» shows the weight of each stone type in the value exported (raw and worked), and the «Ten main markets» show, for each country, its most important destinations, with each one's share of its exports and the average price it gets there.

«Markets they share» are the markets where all the chosen countries sell, ordered by their combined value. Share = that market's weight in each country's exports; USD/t = the average price each one gets there.

Exporter A compares itself with Exporters B and C.

• A exports more (420.5 M USD), but at a much lower average price: 380 USD/t against B's 520 USD/t. With 58.0% worked stone against B's 81.0%, A sells more raw stone, which is worth less per tonne: the price gap comes mainly from the product mix, not from selling the same product cheaper.
• B lost 3.4% in value, but 5.2% in volume: it sold fewer tonnes, at a higher average price (+1.9%).
• C grows fastest (+12.0%), but it has only published up to June, so the comparison is indicative, and it shows no tonnes or price («n.d.»): UN Comtrade estimated its weights.
• In Market X, A sends 18.0% of its sales and gets 410 USD/t, while B gets 560 USD/t. In Market Y, B depends more on that destination (15.8%) than A (7.4%).

Use the indicators to form hypotheses — product mix, price positioning, dependence on one market — and explore them further in each country's dashboards and in Price by destination.

• The average price mixes products. Before concluding that a country sells dearer, compare the product mix and the share of worked stone.
• Everything in USD. Countries that publish in euros are converted with the mean of the ECB monthly rates over the same months; for them, a change in USD includes the euro/dollar exchange-rate effect (the change in tonnes does not).
• Different periods. When the countries have not published the same months, the tool says so and the comparison is indicative.
• «n.d.» for estimated weights. The value and the shares stand; the tonnes, their change and the price per tonne are not shown.
• Minimum of 100 t. The price per tonne is only shown above that.
• Seen from the exporter. The values are those declared by each country; the buying countries may record different values.

Which countries can I compare?

The 15 countries with a KEYSTONE. monthly bulletin, two or three at a time.

Why don't the shares of the ten main markets add up to 100%?

Because the country also sells to other markets, outside the top ten.

Who can see the figures?

Subscribers to the Data and Professional plans. Without a plan, the tool shows the indicators and the country names, but not the figures.

Why do the figures change from one month to the next?

The year-to-date total grows with every month published and the sources revise earlier months. The data are updated whenever the bulletins are updated.