Pottery, Ceramics, and Plumbing Fixture Manufacturing (NAICS 32711)

A Histometrics rollup primer for public- and private-market investors

This is a single-child level. NAICS industry 32711 contains exactly one national industry — 327110, of the same name — so the two are effectively identical in scope, size, and economics. This page gives the one-level summary and this level's own ground-truth federal statistics; for the full treatment (segment economics, company-by-company universe, regulation, and outlook) see the 327110 primer.

1. Overview

NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 32711 is the 5-digit "industry" tier that fires clay at high heat into finished goods: the toilet and sink in a bathroom, the china plate on a table, the porcelain insulator on a power line, and — increasingly — the precision ceramic parts inside a semiconductor tool or a hip implant.[3] Because the classification splits this industry no further than one 6-digit child, 32711 and 327110 describe the same set of factories.

Why an investor should care: this is a small, mature, moderately concentrated U.S. manufacturing niche — about $2.65 billion of domestic factory shipments and roughly 12,000 workers[1][2] — sitting underneath very large end markets (housing, remodeling, foodservice, electronics). It splits into two very different businesses: a commodity-cyclical, freight-protected heavy end (toilets and sinks) and a high-margin, spec-driven technical-ceramics tail (parts for chips, medical devices, and electric vehicles) that grows with technology rather than housing starts. There is essentially no U.S.-listed pure play; exposure comes indirectly through foreign-listed sanitaryware makers, a small-cap importer/distributor (FGI Industries), and diversified U.S. building-products names (detailed in the child primer).

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

The NAICS hierarchy runs from broad sectors (2-digit) down to national industries (6-digit). This page sits at the industry (5-digit) tier. Its children are:

With a single child, the 5-digit industry is a pass-through: every establishment, dollar of shipments, and worker counted under 32711 is also counted under 327110. Nothing rolls up from multiple siblings, so there is no aggregation to explain and no cross-child mix to interpret. (In the 2022 NAICS revision, 327110 itself absorbed three older 2012 codes — 327111 vitreous-china fixtures, 327112 pottery/tableware, and 327113 porcelain electrical supplies — into one combined industry.[3])

In scope: vitreous-china plumbing fixtures (toilets, urinals, bidets, sinks), china and earthenware tableware and pottery, porcelain electrical insulators, and technical/advanced "fine" ceramics.[3] Notably out of scope and often confused with it: metal faucets, valves, and shower trim sit in NAICS 332913 (Plumbing Fixture Fitting and Trim Manufacturing) — so the big "plumbing" faucet brands (Moen, Delta, Grohe) are not in this code — and ceramic tile, brick, and refractories sit in 327120.[3] For the full inclusion/exclusion map, see the 327110 primer.

3. Size (this level's rollup figures)

Federal figures below are our ground-truth source for NAICS 32711 (U.S. Census Bureau); they equal the child's because there is only one child.

(CBP = County Business Patterns; the SBA — U.S. Small Business Administration — small-business threshold for this industry is 1,000 employees.[4])

Concentration. The largest 4 firms make 52.4% of shipments, the top 8 make 62.9%, the top 20 make 76.4%, and the top 50 make 88.5%.[2] The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard concentration gauge where 1,500+ signals "moderately concentrated") is 954.7 — technically unconcentrated by U.S. antitrust thresholds even though the top four firms make just over half the output.[2] That combination — low HHI, high top-4 share — is the signature of a few large plants competing against a long tail of small potteries.

Undercount caveats (important here):

• Imports dwarf domestic output for the light goods. The $2.65 billion figure is U.S. factory shipments only.[2] Most tableware, decorative pottery, and a large share of sanitaryware sold in the U.S. is imported, so domestic production badly understates U.S. consumption.
• The "plumbing fixtures market" you see quoted is a different, bigger thing. Market-research headlines in the tens of billions bundle in faucets/fittings (332913), imports, and distributor margin — none of which is in this code.[22] Do not compare the $2.65 billion Census number to those figures.
• Artisan potters are largely invisible. Individual, non-payroll studio ceramicists file as nonemployers and don't appear in the employer statistics above — a genuine undercount at the craft end.

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

Because 32711 equals 327110, so does its investable map. There is no clean U.S.-listed pure play. The purest domestic assets — Kohler (vitreous-china fixtures), CoorsTek (engineered technical ceramics), and Fiesta Tableware (largest domestic pottery) — are all privately held. Listed exposure is indirect, through:

• Foreign-listed sanitaryware makers: LIXIL (Tokyo: 5938, owner of American Standard and Grohe; Water Technology segment ~¥811B, North America ~¥148B), TOTO (Tokyo: 5332; U.S. ADR TOTDY), Geberit (Zurich: GEBN), and Globe Union (Taiwan: 9934, owner of Gerber).[7][8][9][10][23]
• Technical/advanced ceramics: Kyocera (Tokyo: 6971 / NYSE: KYO).[15]
• Small-cap U.S.-listed: FGI Industries (NASDAQ: FGI; ~$131M revenue, sanitaryware ~$80M) is the closest direct U.S.-listed commercial exposure, though it is primarily an importer/distributor rather than a domestic ceramic manufacturer, and carries high customer and supplier concentration risk (top 10 customers = 66% of sales; one supplier = 83% of payables).[24]
• Diversified U.S. building-products proxies: Masco (NYSE: MAS; Plumbing Products segment ~$5.0B) and Fortune Brands Innovations (NYSE: FBIN) — but their revenue is mostly metal faucets/fittings (NAICS 332913), so this is adjacent exposure, not ceramic bodies.[11][12][13]

The company-by-company table, scale figures, and private-owner roster are in the 327110 primer.

5. How the money works

Identical to the child. Owners earn a spread over materials, energy, and labor, and the economics differ sharply by segment:

• Fixtures and tableware (the ceramic-body business): raw materials (clay, feldspar, silica) are cheap; the decisive cost is energy, because kilns fire continuously at very high temperatures — so natural-gas prices and kiln uptime drive margins. These are high-fixed-cost plants where profit depends on capacity utilization and yield (fired ceramic cracks and warps). A toilet's bulk, weight, and fragility make ocean freight expensive, giving domestic plants a natural freight moat on the heavy end while light tableware is dominated by imports. Growth comes from premiumization (one-piece toilets, bidet/washlet seats) and a steady repair-and-remodel replacement base. As an upper-end benchmark, Geberit reported a 29.4% EBITDA margin in 2025, with direct materials and personnel each at roughly 26% of sales — demonstrating what brands, specification power, and efficient manufacturing can earn, though not the average profitability of the code.[24]
• Technical / advanced ceramics: an engineered-components business with pricing power and high margins — parts are qualified into a customer's process (chip-etch tools, orthopedic implants, EV inverters), making suppliers sticky. Growth tracks electronics, medical, and EV demand, not housing.[15]

Premiumization is increasingly shifting the customer's spending from the ceramic bowl alone toward integrated systems — electronics, seats, valves, and installation components — some of which may fall outside 327110.

6. Demand drivers

• Residential remodeling and repair — the steadiest driver, supported by an aging U.S. housing stock (median owner-occupied home age rose from 31 years in 2005 to 41 years in 2023).[19]
• New housing construction — single-family starts are the swing factor for fixture volume.[19]
• Non-residential building — hotels, offices, schools, hospitals, and stadiums buy fixtures in bulk.
• Water scarcity and efficiency — drought and utility rebates favor high-efficiency toilets (see Regulation).
• Premium / wellness trends — bidet seats and smart toilets lift unit prices in developed markets.
• Technology end markets — semiconductors, EVs, telecom, and medical devices drive the fastest-growing corner, the advanced-ceramics tail.[15]

7. Regulation

Same regime as the child. The federal Energy Policy Act of 1992 has capped U.S. toilets at 1.6 gallons per flush (gpf) since 1994; the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) WaterSense voluntary label certifies "high-efficiency" toilets at 1.28 gpf and is widely referenced by state codes and utility rebates (a Version 2.0 tank-type spec was issued in May 2024 but its effective date is paused, leaving Version 1.2 in force).[5] State mandates (California, Colorado, Texas, New York) make WaterSense-level performance effectively required in large markets. On trade, Chinese ceramic goods face Section 301 tariffs (25% on most affected products, with increases finalized September 2024), and antidumping actions targeting Chinese ceramic sanitaryware have been pursued — making trade policy a first-order swing factor for import-exposed segments.[16][18] Kilns are combustion sources operating under Clean Air Act permitting.

8. Consolidation

Ownership has globalized rather than domestically rolled up: American Standard sits inside Japan's LIXIL; Mansfield inside Colombia's Organización Corona; and in tableware, Homer Laughlin's foodservice lines moved to Britain's Steelite in 2020 while the retail Fiesta business stayed independent.[9][20][21] Cross-border acquisition, not domestic consolidation, is the dominant pattern. At the premium end there is notable reshoring — TOTO's new $224 million plant in Morrow, Georgia raises U.S. luxury-toilet capacity roughly 150%.[7] Technical ceramics is its own higher-margin contest (Kyocera vs. CoorsTek vs. CeramTec/Morgan on materials science).[14][15]

9. Risks

• Housing and construction cyclicality — new-build fixture volume swings with starts and mortgage rates.
• Energy cost shocks — continuous high-temperature firing makes margins sensitive to natural-gas prices.
• Import and trade-policy whiplash — tariff changes cut both ways; light-goods segments stay structurally exposed to low-cost imports.[16][17]
• Capital intensity and inflexibility — kilns are expensive and hard to idle; utilization shortfalls quickly erase profit.
• Offshoring of tableware/pottery — decades of migration to Asia have hollowed out the domestic craft end.
• Substitution — plastic, cultured-marble, stainless-steel, fireclay-composite, and enameled-metal fixtures (all in other NAICS codes) can take share on price or design.
• Customer and supplier concentration — importers and smaller players face bargaining-power risk (e.g., FGI Industries' top 10 customers represent 66% of sales).[24]
• Access risk for public investors — the best domestic assets are private or foreign-listed, bringing currency risk and limited disclosure.

10. How to invest and outlook

Because this level is its one child, the playbook is 327110's. Public-market routes are foreign-listed near-pure plays (LIXIL, TOTO, Geberit, Globe Union; Kyocera for technical ceramics), the small-cap FGI Industries for direct U.S.-listed commercial exposure (with concentration caveats), and diversified U.S. building-products proxies (Masco, Fortune Brands Innovations) that carry only diluted ceramic exposure.[7][8][9][10][11][12][15][23][24] Private-market access to the crown-jewel domestic assets — Kohler, CoorsTek, Fiesta — comes through direct/private-equity ownership or specialty technical-ceramics suppliers to the chip, medical, and EV supply chains, which is the higher-growth, higher-margin corner.[14][15]

Bottom line (analytical judgment): NAICS 32711 is, for all practical purposes, NAICS 327110 — a small, mature, import-pressured domestic manufacturing base with a genuinely attractive high-tech ceramic tail. For most investors it is a thematic exposure bought indirectly, not a sector with a domestic pure-play stock. For the full company roster, segment economics, and citations, read the 327110 primer.

---

Sources

Drawn from the child primer (327110); this single-child level shares its evidence base.

1. U.S. Census Bureau. County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 327110 (establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
2. U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 Economic Census — Concentration by Largest Firms, NAICS 327110 (firm count, receipts, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau / NAICS 2022, "327110 — Pottery, Ceramics, and Plumbing Fixture Manufacturing" (definition, inclusions, cross-references), 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=327110&input=327110&year=2022
4. U.S. Small Business Administration. Table of Small Business Size Standards, NAICS 327110 (1,000 employees), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Residential Toilets" and WaterSense tank-type toilet specification (1.28 gpf vs. 1.6 gpf federal standard; Version 2.0 pause), 2024. https://www.epa.gov/watersense/residential-toilets
6. PR Newswire / TOTO USA. "TOTO Opens $224M Georgia Manufacturing Facility …," 2025 (Morrow, GA plant; ~300,000 units/yr; TOTO USA FY2024 sales ~$464M). https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/toto-opens-224m-georgia-manufacturing-facility-increasing-us-luxury-toilet-production-capacity-by-150-302536447.html
7. Companies Market Cap / Statista. "TOTO Ltd revenue" (FY ending 3/2024 ≈ ¥724 billion), 2024–2026. https://companiesmarketcap.com/toto/revenue/
8. Rising Bath. "LIXIL's revenue … Grohe … American Standard," 2024. https://www.risingbath.com/blog/lixil-s-revenue-is-70-2-billion-grohe-7-3-billion-american-standard-10-5
9. Geberit AG. Annual Report 2024 (net sales CHF 3,640 million), 2025. https://reports.geberit.com/annual-report/2024/
10. Masco Corporation. 2025 Form 10-K (Plumbing Products segment ~$5.0B; $895M operating profit), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/62996/000006299626000005/mas-20251231.htm
11. Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2024 (Water Innovations segment net sales ~$2.6B; Moen, House of Rohl), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1519751/000095017025026763/fbin-20241228.htm
12. PitchBook. "Fortune Brands Innovations Company Profile" (ticker FBIN; ~$4.46B TTM revenue), 2026. https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/51455-17
13. CoorsTek / MarketsandMarkets. "Technical Ceramics Market — CoorsTek and Kyocera leading players," 2025. https://www.coorstek.com/
14. Grand View Research / Mordor Intelligence. "Advanced Ceramics Market" (~$12.86B in 2025 → ~$17.24B by 2030, ~6% CAGR), 2025–2026. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/advanced-ceramics-market
15. White & Case LLP / USTR. "United States Finalizes Section 301 Tariff Increases on Imports from China," 2024. https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/united-states-finalizes-section-301-tariff-increases-imports-china
16. Felix Deco / trade tracker. "China Import Tariffs on Building Materials" (Chinese ceramic tile antidumping duty >350%; adjacent NAICS 327120), 2026. https://felixdeco.com/tariff-tracker/
17. China Chamber of Commerce (CCCME) / U.S. AD-CVD petition documentation, ceramic sanitaryware petition, 2024. https://www.cccme.org.cn/Upload/file/20241121/20241121134637_9676.pdf
18. Plumbing & Mechanical / The Farnsworth Group. "2026 Plumbing Industry Outlook," 2026. https://www.pmmag.com/articles/107036-cautious-growth-through-critical-change-2026-plumbing-industry-outlook
19. Wikipedia. "Fiesta Tableware Company" (formerly Homer Laughlin China Co.; 2020 sale of foodservice lines to Steelite), 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiesta_Tableware_Company
20. Supply House Times. "Mansfield Plumbing Products Acquired by Colombian Firm" (Organización Corona; plants in OH, TX, CA), 2004/2024. https://www.supplyht.com/articles/87047-mansfield-plumbing-products-acquired-by-colombian-firm
21. Renub Research / GlobeNewswire. "North America Plumbing Fixtures & Fittings Market" (broader than NAICS 327110), 2026. https://www.renub.com/north-america-plumbing-fixtures-market-p.php
22. LIXIL Corporation. Regional sales data (Water Technology segment ~¥811.1B; North America ~¥148.3B, year ended March 2026). https://www.lixil.com/en/investor/financial/sales.html
23. FGI Industries. Form 10-K, FY2025 (sanitaryware $80.3M/61.5% of $130.5M revenue; 27.0% gross margin; top 10 customers = 66% of sales; one supplier = 83.3% of A/P), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1864943/000162828026024682/fgi-20251231.htm
24. Geberit AG. 2025 Results — Financial Year 2025 (29.4% EBITDA margin; direct materials 26.4% of sales; personnel 26.4% of sales), 2026. https://reports.geberit.com/annual-report/2025/business-report/business-and-financial-review/financial-year-2025/results.html