Keda and Micasso Tiles Plaza: How China Is Conquering Africa While Europe Looks Away
Tile Wars · markets · · Tile Wars Exclusive
Africa has become the new strategic battleground for the global ceramic tile industry — and China, through Keda, is playing the game with far more vision than India and almost no European competition.
Africa has become the new strategic battleground for the global ceramic industry. And, for now, China is playing this game with far more vision than India — and practically without any European competition.
Chinese company Keda landed in Kenya in 2016. Less than a decade later, the group controls roughly 80% of the local market, according to a company representative we spoke with during our visit.
Today, Keda operates two tile factories in Kenya, a sanitaryware plant, and commercializes its products under the Twyford and Micasso brands. The new Micasso Tiles Plaza showroom in Nairobi — a luxury space designed as a curated lifestyle destination rather than a sample warehouse — is the most visible symbol of this strategy: China is no longer competing only on price in Africa. It is now competing on aspiration, design and brand.
Ghana has quietly entered the global top 10 of tile exporters, also driven by Chinese-funded production. Across the continent, Keda alone is targeting around 250 million m² of installed annual capacity. The shift is clear: from low and mid-end output to higher-value segments where margins — and influence — are greater.
India, the other big global producer, is being squeezed. Local margins are shrinking under the pressure of Chinese-backed factories built directly inside African markets, the loss of price advantage, and growing logistical and geopolitical uncertainty linked to the conflict with Iran. The Indian diaspora networks that historically opened doors are no longer enough when the competitor manufactures next door.
Meanwhile, Europe is almost entirely absent.
And that may be the most worrying part.
Because Africa does not only represent commercial opportunities. It also represents industrial positioning, technological influence and future control of strategic markets.
China has understood this perfectly.
The question is whether Europe will react before it is too late.
Source: Tile Wars Exclusive