Global market overview and demand of Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose
After years of development, the HPMC market in developed countries has become increasingly mature, while the market in developing countries is still in the growth stage and is the main driving force for the future global HPMC consumption growth. In 2011, the global demand for MC/HPMC was 288,000 tons and the consumption was 256,500 tons. Among them, the building materials grade had the largest consumption, which was 165,000 tons, followed by the daily chemical grade and the pharmaceutical grade, with consumption of 32,000 tons and 28,000 tons respectively. The food grade consumption reached 26,500 tons, and the other consumption was relatively small. The global MC/HPMC consumption in 2011 is shown in Figure 1.
The global demand for HPMC pharmaceutical excipients, including mature markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, accounted for 30% of the share. The United States is the world's largest single demand market for pharmaceutical excipients, accounting for 15.9% of the global demand in 2009. Among them, diluents are the largest demand category. Market research organization BusinessInsights predicts that from 2009 to 2015, the global demand for pharmaceutical excipients will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.9%. Mature markets including the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan will grow by 3.8%, while emerging markets, especially China, India and Brazil, will grow at a faster rate of 6.3%.
In recent years, the global production of dry mortar has grown very fast, and the current annual output has exceeded 100 million tons. Most of this growth has occurred in Eastern Europe, Russia, Dubai and China, where prefabricated products such as dry mortar are used, and construction technology has gradually shifted from labor-intensive to more industrialized. The dry mortar industry is most developed in Europe, and in 2004, almost half of the global demand (about 90 million tons) was generated in Europe. In Europe, dry mortar plants use ultra-high-speed mixers, which can evenly mix one ton of raw materials per batch within three minutes. The annual production capacity has reached 500,000 tons, and the maximum daily output can reach 20,000 bags. The prospects for the dry mortar industry are very optimistic, and any changes will give it new characteristics. In addition, the demand for HPMC in daily chemicals and adhesives and other application areas will continue to increase.
At present, the US MC/HPMC market is basically saturated, and the market growth has been relatively slow in recent years. The consumption in 2006 was 30,500 tons, and the consumption in 2011 was 34,900 tons, of which 60% of the products were used in the construction industry, about 18,700 tons [7]. The consumption structure of US MC/HPMC and the forecast for 2015 are shown in Table 2. As can be seen from the table, the construction industry and the food and pharmaceutical industries are the main driving forces for the development of the US MC/HPMC market, while the demand of the polymer industry will remain unchanged.
