Water-borne coatings: In a good flow
The global market for water-borne coatings should increase at a CAGR of 5.7 % by 2022 and reach a value of EUR 82.7 billion. In 2017 the global water-borne coatings market size was about EUR 62.4 billion.
Asia-Pacific was the dominant market for water-borne coatings in 2017, with EUR 24.6 billion. The market is largely driven by architectural coatings application. The water-borne coatings in the architectural segment is expected to show good growth in the next five years especially from the developing countries, driven by huge investments in new infrastructure developments, new housing projects, and renovation of residential and commercial buildings.
Rising demand for Eco-Friendly technologies
The quality and robustness of water-borne coatings is improving due to use eco-friendly raw materials. Although best known for their use as architectural coatings, water-borne acrylic coatings, also known as acrylic latex coatings, are much more than just residential coatings.
Other than architectural application, they are also used for many different applications, such as automotive, marine, wood, packaging, wood and, furniture, plastic, and printing inks.
Driving Factors for Water-borne Coatings in the Asia-Pacific Region
Asia-Pacific has been a bright spot in the global water-borne coatings market in the backdrop of the overall slowdown in global economic development. Moreover, as Asia-Pacific is the hub for foreign investment and has a booming manufacturing sector largely due to the low-cost labour and easily accessible raw materials.
The growing middle-class population and the rising standard of living in the region will increase the demand for architectural coatings which in turn will drive the water-borne coatings market. Concerns for environmental, health, and safety issues are driving the demand for water-borne coatings in the Asia-Pacific region.
Acrylic based Water-borne Coatings Market
There has been a shift toward water-borne acrylics, especially in the automotive basecoats due to environmental concerns. Many of the coatings companies have already converted a number of its assembly lines to water-borne basecoats and the automotive players are expected to convert several of their production lines to water-borne basecoats from solvent-borne coatings technology in the near future.
In North America, approximately 25 assembly plants use water-borne basecoats. Germany, which accounts for about 45 % of the total vehicle production in Europe has 85 % of production lines that uses water-borne basecoats instead of solvent-borne or powder-based technology for coating automotive parts.
More information
This article is a short version of an more extensive market overview in our current issue of the European Coatings Journal. As a subscriber of our digital library European Coatings 360 you can read the full article online.