Masterbatch market forecast to reach $13.8 billion by 2025

Pune, India – Market Research Future (MRFR) expects the masterbatch market to touch an approximate valuation of $13,839.3 million by the end of 2025. MRFR believes that the strong demand for masterbatch is due to the rising preference for high performance, advanced materials among end use industries like aerospace, automotive, consumer goods and packaging.

All over the world, packaging has emerged as a lucrative market, with the key reason believed to be the surging popularity of the e-commerce sector. Consumer goods producers offer attractive packaging to gain consumers’ interest, and boost their sales. Various masterbatch types are utilized along with polymers for making attractive packaging, which can bolster the product demand in the years ahead. A number of online retailers make use of several types of boxes in accordance with the product being transported. These boxes made of masterbatch ensure the product’s safety during transportation. Additionally, proper packaging has become one of the key focus areas in e-commerce, fostering the demand for plastic masterbatch and, consequently, inducing substantial market growth.

Lately, there has been a dramatic surge in the demand for plastic within the automotive industry, with the primary goal being vehicle’s weight reduction and boost fuel efficiency. This factor has led to a higher demand for various types of plastics with masterbatch additives with functional properties in the automotive sector. Emerging countries in Asia Pacific like India, Japan and China have recorded a significant buildup of automobile production, which is bound to present attractive opportunities to the players and foster the additive masterbatch market share.

Issues with regard to complexity and cost of color masterbatch can be a huge restraint for market growth over the coming years. To elaborate, these issues pertain to the growing need for bigger production space, huge equipment, longer lead times and significant costs, which are likely to slow down the market’s progress during the review timeline.

Strict environmental norms regarding the non-biodegradability aspect of plastics can pose a significant challenge to the leading firms, since these regulations weaken the product demand. The increase in the number of stringent regulations across countries with regard to the use of plastics can have negative implications on the masterbatch industry.

MRFR affirms that the masterbatch market value will continue to scale at a robust pace of 6.52 percent from 2019 to 2025 (evaluation period). The rapid expansion of the masterbatch market size can be accredited to the growing use of masterbatch as an effective coloring technique combined with the rising demand for plastics as an efficient substitute for metals in automotive.

Black, white, color and additive are the primary types of masterbatch available in the global market. Out of these, the color segment is on track to achieve a CAGR of more than 7 percent while attaining a valuation of $4,980.3 million by the year 2025. In addition to being the fastest growing segment, color masterbatch will also land the top spot in the global market. The provision of impressive color distribution on the plastic product along with other properties like easy to feed, handle and store, compared to the powdered forms of pure colorants has prompted a higher demand for color masterbatches among end-users. Moreover, a soaring number of packaging manufacturers are employing marketing tactics such as using attractive shapes, pleasing colors and catchy prints to bolster sales via increased consumer attention, which further encourages the use of color masterbatches. The second highest demand is generated for white masterbatch, with the segment accounting for more than 25% share in the worldwide market.

In view of the host of versatile characteristics, masterbatch finds applications in a number of end-use sectors such as consumer products, electrical and electronics, packaging, automotive, building and construction, and more. Masterbatch registers extensive applications in the automotive sector, with the latter having touched more than $800 million in 2018 and touted to procure a CAGR of close to 7.0 percent. Automotive application is the fastest advancing segment while the packaging industry is anticipated to emerge as the biggest consumer in the masterbatch industry, having procured the largest share of over 30 percent in the year 2018. It is expected that by 2025, the packaging industry can surpass 5,000 million, taking into account the shifting trend among consumers towards packaged consumer products, especially with the growth of the e-commerce sector. Out of all the materials generally used, plastics own a share of more than 30 percent in the world packaging industry, which bolsters the masterbatch market value.

Since 2018, APAC (Asia Pacific) has remained in the lead with the highest share of 39.1 percent, on account of the stunning growth of the packaging sector along with the improving regulatory scenario for the automotive industry. It is also presumed that the APAC market can advance at a rate of more than 7.0 percent over the forecast period. China was identified as the most lucrative market in 2018 and can record a significant growth rate of close to 7.5 percent in the following years. Various polyethylene types are gaining traction in the region, some of which include low-density polyethylene, linear low-density polyethylene and high density polyethylene. Polyethylene’s soaring use as a carrier polymer in building & construction, automotive and packaging in the region has helped foster the masterbatch market share.

Europe has taken the second lead in the global market and primarily segmented into Italy, Germany, U.K., France and Russia. Germany is one of the biggest manufacturing hubs in the world and observes steady growth in production facilities, which has managed to foster the demand for polyethylene. The presence of a large number of plastic manufacturing firms in the region and the huge availability of cost effective plastics also strengthens the market position. Top firms in the region are increasingly replacing synthetic with bio-based plastics owing to the mounting environmental concerns, which can be another key growth inducer in the following years.

North America demonstrates a strong growth potential and can gain a development rate of over 6.0 percent to touch close to $3,000 million by 2025. By virtue of high industrialization rate, rising uptake of consumer goods and extensive construction and building activities, the region is touted to be a strong contender in the global market over the ensuing period.

The competitive landscape of the global market is quite extensive, marked with the presence of a large number of global as well as regional firms. Most of these vendors are deeply involved in rigorous research and development activities to produce different types of innovative masterbatches. Given the integration of established companies all across the value chain, new contenders face multiple challenges to gain entry into the masterbatch industry.  

Hubron International Ltd. is a leading developer of black plastic masterbatch as well as conductive compound. The company has more than 80 years of experience in black masterbatch and boasts of masterbatch production of over 85 percent that is exported via a robust network of global distributors.