Industry overview
The Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products sector across EU27 average comprises approximately 88,354 enterprises employing about 1,096,585 people and generating €213.2 bn in net turnover in 2020. The average enterprise size is – employees per firm. This is a useful yardstick when assessing whether your own operation sits within the typical scale band of the sector.
Profitability
With a healthy operating margin of 12.6% of revenue in 2020, the sector reports €26.9 bn of gross operating surplus (Eurostat's EBITDA-equivalent, before depreciation). This figure provides the headline benchmark against which an individual operator can sanity-check their own bottom line, values significantly below indicate cost or pricing pressure, those above suggest competitive advantage worth defending.
Cost structure
The Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products cost mix is reasonably balanced: cost of revenue at 67.5%, personnel at 20.4% and energy at – of turnover. Without a single dominant cost driver, margin management requires attention across the full operating envelope rather than focus on any one line.
Trend & trajectory
Over the period 2011 to 2020 the operating margin moved from 10.5% to 12.6% (+2.1 percentage points), an encouraging upward trajectory. Sectors with stable or improving margins tend to reflect successful pass-through of input costs and disciplined capacity management; declining margins typically point to either over-supply or a structural cost squeeze that warrants strategic review.