Emerging markets are driving the rapid growth of the industrial nonwoven market

 

 

According to the research report of Smithers Pira, the global industrial non-woven market sales reached 20.9 billion us dollars in 2017. Based on the average annual growth rate of 7%, the global industrial non-woven market sales are expected to reach 29.2 billion us dollars by 2022. Supply and demand play an important role in the use and cost of industrial non-woven fabrics. Contrary to consumer goods, customers' choice of industrial non-woven fabrics is mainly based on the cost performance of materials.

Smithers agents-the company in examining the growing industrial non-woven fabric market, the exclusive report released its latest "future 2022 industrial non-woven fabric development outlook", analyzes in detail the current industrial non-woven the influence factors of market demand and development trend, and the situation of non-woven fabrics used in industry for the future market bold prediction. The report shows that in 2017, the global industrial non-woven market sales reached 20.9 billion us dollars, at an average annual growth rate of 7%, it is expected that the global industrial non-woven market sales will reach 29.2 billion us dollars by 2022.

For industrial users, industrial nonwoven fabrics are a relatively new material that can be used to replace textiles, paper, polyurethane foams, fiberglass and plastics. Compared with these products, the industrial non-woven fabrics in the current market have better performance, better sustainability and lower cost.

The development prospect of industrial non-woven fabrics from the future to 2022 has clearly pointed out the key factors that are expected to contribute to the market share growth of non-woven fabrics in the next five years.

Emerging markets

The industrial nonwovens market is becoming increasingly global as the economies of large emerging markets continue to improve, meeting the demand and purchasing power for high-performance products.

Some of the world's largest regions, including China, India and Latin America, are improving their infrastructure and building new commercial and civil buildings, all of which require industrial nonwovens, which is driving the rapid growth of the industrial nonwovens market.

At present, the market penetration rate of industrial non-woven fabrics in these regions is only at the medium level. Limited by population size or national per capita income, the growth rate of these markets is still considerable, which is usually 2-3 times that of some mature markets. These markets are not as rich or sophisticated as mature markets, and therefore tend to embrace less high-tech products.

Supply and demand and price trends

Supply and demand play an important role in the use and cost of industrial non-woven fabrics. Contrary to consumer goods, customers' choice of industrial non-woven fabrics is mainly based on the cost performance of materials.

North America, the main oil producing region, could soon become a net exporter. This suggests that the oil glut will continue, so that the supply of petroleum-based fibres and polymers will remain relatively stable. In this context, spun-bonded non-woven fabric will be the most popular products, and other types of non-woven fabric can also benefit to a certain extent.

Wood pulp is another important raw material for industrial nonwovens. In recent years, the number of newly built pulp mills has increased, which makes the pulp production capacity expand rapidly. But obviously, at present the pulping enterprise to the total output can increase the control ability enhances day by day, in the past few years, has successfully maintained the pulp price stably in the high place, anticipates the next few years the wood pulp price will still maintain stably in the high place.

It is expected that by 2022, the supply of industrial non-woven fabrics will remain stable and the market supply and demand will remain balanced, and the market price of industrial non-woven fabrics will not rise significantly.

sustainability

Combined with regulatory pressures, consumer demand and retailer initiatives, environmental responsibility has recently become a driver of the nonwoven market.

Wal-mart has long been involved in sustainability issues. In the middle of 2005, wal-mart announced its unilateral implementation of environment-friendly policies, and in 2006, it released a scorecard of sustainable packaging, requiring suppliers to provide data for it, and corresponding evaluation criteria to rate the performance of suppliers and the results compared with other suppliers. Wal-mart promises to reward its best suppliers. This shows that the environmental performance of suppliers has a significant impact on the judgment and selection of non-woven fabrics by the world's largest retailers.

In addition, consumers have made it clear to their governments that they want to see progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preventing global warming. These consumers are more likely to want their governments to crack down on industrial polluters first. Many current and new regulations, as well as potential customer returns, will make environmentally friendly manufacturing and its products more profitable.

Trends in production and productivity

Industrial nonwoven production processes are often based on newer technologies that tend to consume less energy, produce less waste, and consume less raw materials. Compared with the textile and papermaking processes, most nonwoven manufacturing processes produce little or no waste. The production process of non-woven fabric will develop continuously towards the direction of lower energy consumption, less waste and lower product ration.

Compared with woven fabrics or other materials, many industrial non-woven fabrics have the ability to produce different products cheaply, which greatly enriches the diversification of non-woven products.

Spunbond non - woven fabric market is broad. In the past few years, a lot of new capacity has been put into production, and new capacity is still increasing. Most of the new capacity is in Asia.

Needling, rough and wet mesh nonwovens are processed more slowly and have a smaller market capacity. Compared with spun-bonded nonwovens, the production capacity of these products is sufficient and the growth rate of new production capacity is much slower.

Disruptive technology

Several new technologies have had a significant impact on the nonwoven market, including three major development areas:

Nanotechnology: this technology has a wide range of potential applications, from the preparation of ultra-lightweight non-woven fabrics from nanofibers to the absorption of large amounts of liquid and gas by nanoparticles.

Recycling: this has had an impact on the raw materials of non-woven fabrics, and recycled cotton and polyester fibers have been used in industrial non-woven fabrics.

Composite materials: these materials are becoming more and more sophisticated, just like the composites that have been put into use at present, which are made from stretchy non-woven fabrics and thin film laminates.

Competitive material

Non-woven fabrics compete mainly with textiles and paper. Non-woven fabrics are usually lighter in weight and lower in cost than textiles. Weaving and knitting processes are much slower than most non-woven processes, which makes most textiles more expensive. Although textiles are more durable and reusable. However, it usually needs to be washed and ironed or treated in some other way before reuse, which also increases the cost and complexity of reuse.

Non-woven fabrics are usually thicker, stronger and more absorbent than paper. Paper costs less and is disposable. Non-woven fabric can be produced by mixing various fibers together and forming a three-dimensional structure, while paper has a very limited choice of fiber materials and structure.