Carbomer market status and future development trends

Carbomer is a high molecular polymer of acrylic acid bonded pentaerythritol allyl ether or allyl sucrose. Calculated as dry product, the carboxylic acid group (-COOH) should be 56.0%～68.0%. Carbomer is a very important rheology modifier. The glue combined with water is acidic. The neutralized carbomer is an excellent gel matrix. It has important purposes such as thickening and suspension. The process is simple and stable. It has good properties and is widely used in lotions, creams and gels.

Comparison of the development status of the global and Chinese markets

After COVID-19, based on the latest research, we estimate that the global Carbomer market will be worth US$769 million in 2020, and will reach US$1,025 million in 2026, with a CAGR of 4.91% from 2021 to 2026.

In recent years, global carbomer revenue has shown a rapid growth trend, with a compound growth rate of approximately 4.60% in 2015-2019. In 2019, the global carbomer output value reached nearly 670 million US dollars, and the output was nearly 61,942 tons. China has developed rapidly in the past few years with a compound growth rate of 5.63% in consumption, and its output in 2019 was nearly 14,678 tons.

In the global market, carbomer product models mainly include carbomer 940, 980, 676, U20, U21, SF-1 and other types. Among them, Carbomer 940 accounted for the largest proportion. In 2019, the market accounted for 25.26%, with sales of 127 million US dollars.

In the Chinese market, carbomer products are mainly carbomer 940, 980, 676, U20, U21, SF-1 and other types. Among them, Carbomer 940 accounted for the largest proportion. In 2019, the market accounted for 27.09%, with sales of 26.62 million US dollars.

The competition in the carbomer market is not fierce. The major global manufacturers include Lubrizol, Tianci Materials, Zongqing Biological, SNF Floerger, Newman Fine Chemical and Evonik. In 2019, the top five manufacturers accounted for approximately 90.03% of the global revenue.

The global carbomer market reached 4.4 billion yuan in 2019 and is expected to reach 6.6 billion yuan in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7%.

Future trends

Carbomer has special complexing properties to ethanol, and its thickening effect on high-concentration ethanol is still difficult to replace with other products. Therefore, during the new crown epidemic, the explosive growth in demand for hand-washing disinfection gel has also driven Carbomer's skyrocketing, volume and price rise.

As China's new crown pneumonia epidemic has been well controlled, the domestic demand for hand-washing disinfectant gel has dropped rapidly, and the domestic demand and price of carbomer have dropped. However, the foreign epidemic is still spreading, so the demand for Carbomer remains strong.

In addition to its good application effect on hand-washing disinfection gel, carbomer also has a wide range of applications in cosmetics, toothpaste, lotion, medical gel and other fields.

As the Thickener or suspending agent of the main product, carbomer is added in a small amount and accounts for a small proportion of the cost of the entire product. Therefore, the demand is relatively stable, and certain price fluctuations are still acceptable for the demanding enterprises. However, if the price increase is too large, even exponentially soaring, in addition, the current global production capacity of carbomer is not large, if the supply of goods cannot be stabilized, the demanding plant may find alternatives, which is detrimental to the development of carbomer's later market.