Alpharetta, Ga.—LX Hausys may not be a household name when it comes to LVT, but if new vice president Steve DeCarlo has anything to say about it that is about to change. DeCarlo, who was instrumental in building Shaw’s LVT business from the ground up, has designs on growing LX Hausys’ market share in the U.S.
DeCarlo is quite familiar with LX Hausys given this is the company from which he initially sourced at Shaw. Now he will attempt to grow the company’s presence at retail with its HFlor brand, a major player globally with sales amassing over half a billion dollars annually.
That is part and parcel to what led DeCarlo to accept the position at LX Hausys. “I’ve known them since 2011,” he said. “It’s a great company known for innovation and quality. I have a good understanding of how the company works. So, when the opportunity was presented to me, it was a very familiar group that was underrepresented in the marketplace. There are a lot of things that LX does that can make a difference for our customers, and it was a great opportunity to match my experience from product and marketing— and overall leadership—to a big global company. It’s just not well known in the North American market.”
LX Hausys was derived from LG Chemical, which at one time was part of $100 billion-plus LG. LX Hausys was grouped around mostly interior building materials, from windows to countertops to wall coverings to flooring. The company has been in the resilient business for almost 70 years, making LVT for 40 of them.
Focus on differentiation
With so many companies in the LVT space, the obvious question is what differentiates LX Hausys from some of the others out there? DeCarlo says the answer lies in one word: innovation. “Some of the things they’ve done in the past are quite impressive,” he said. “They’re able to do embossed in register on a continuous range. They don’t have to use pressing, they can do it on continuous. That goes for LVT as well as sheet goods. So the realism they’ve been able to produce has always been their hallmark. They’ve also been able to do some really cool things with embossing and the first generation of it was something called MEIR where you can have multiple embosses on the same plank.”
DeCarlo cited some of the products that were shown at Surfaces as illustration of LXHausys’ innovation leadership. “Our TrueMatte finish makes an LVT look just like wood,” he said. “We’re the only ones that can do that on a flexible product; some people can do it on SPC. We also have improved scratch, stain and scuff [resistance] based on this technology. So that’s realism like wood and the performance/durability that you expect.”
HFlor, which is strong in Europe and Asia offers a host of products under its umbrella: glue-down LVT in 2mm, 2.5mm and 3mm formats, and 5mm loose lay and SPC. The SPC is unique in that it’s on a continuous range. “It’s not extruded,” DeCarlo explained. “So we’re able to offer that in both a click format as well as glue down. We are one of the few companies that can do SPC on a glue-down format.”
The advantage of glue-down SPC is that it can go into a commercial environment. “One of the concerns you have with click SPC is the joint integrity,” he said. “You have roller traffic issues, high pivot point issues. You don’t necessarily want to put a click into that environment.”
LX Hausys will be focusing on both glue down and click. Glue down tends to find favor in the multifamily market. “We believe having choice and allowing the customer to make that decision is important,” he said.
The company will attack the market through distribution, both traditional flooring wholesalers and through its surfaces group. Among the current distributors are NRF in the Northeast, Tom Duffy on the West Coast and Cisco Shoreline in Florida.
The price is right
As for pricing, DeCarlo said HFlor is a premium player and does not get involved in the 4mm or 3+1 type of products. “We don’t see that as providing a good value for our customers,” he noted. “We are going to be mid-market to high market in terms of our positioning, and do that through our design and performance characteristics. We’re going to be in range with the marketplace.”
Because the products are made in South Korea, LX Hausys is not subject to the 25% tariff imposed on Chinese imports. That translates into a pricing advantage for retailers and consumers. The company also recently introduced its first domestic line coming out of Georgia.
From a design standpoint, LX Hausys has one of the largest design centers in the industry in Seoul, which allows it to take advantage of all the different global trends. As well, the company recently hired former Shaw designer Martha Wakeland as its creative director in the United States. “We will be taking that trend analysis and then developing it through either a rotogravure or a digital design process,” DeCarlo said.
How big is the opportunity for LX Hausys in the U.S.? DeCarlo declined to pin a number on it, but offered that the vision is to be proportionate to the market. In other words, if residential is two times the size of commercial, that’s where LX wants to be. And for the record, its commercial business is sizeable in the U.S., so you can connect the dots.
One place LX Hausys is not going to grow is the home center. HFlor is exclusive to specialty retail—the consumer is unable to shop the brand at the big box. “That is not where we are and there is no real intention to go there,” he said.
