Asian share of global surfactant market to rise further

German-based Ceresana Research expects the global surfactants market to generate revenues of more than US$41 billion in 2018, which translates to an average annual growth rate of 4.5%. With a roughly 37% share of global consumption, Asia-Pacific is the largest surfactants market, followed by North America and Western Europe. Countries in Asia-Pacific are expected to boost their share of the global surfactants market over the next eight years, at the expense of Western European countries and the U.S. and Canada. In addition, South America is expected to post higher growth rates, primarily due to capacity expansion in Brazil. “We expect non-ionic surfactants to register the strongest growth between 2010 and 2018,” said Ceresana CEO Oliver Kutsch. Despite the global trend to nonionic surfactants, anionics will remain the most widely used surfactants, especially in Africa, the Middle East, and Asian countries, with the exception of Japan and South Korea, the company said. Ceresana forecasted consumption in Asia-Pacific to grow by 4.3% annually, at the same time predicting a slightly higher consumption growth rate of 4.7% for South America. Industrial cleaners accounted for less than 9% of global consumption in 2010. Body care products and cosmetics had a 9.5% share. Other industrial applications, such as agrochemicals, photo chemicals, oil field chemicals, construction materials, foodstuffs, adhesives, lubricants as well as metalworking, mining and pulp and paper, accounted for approximately 11% of worldwide consumption, the research firm said. (March 6, 2012)