In the post-epidemic era, new trends in the development of China's coatings industry!

In recent years, with the rapid development of China's real estate, automotive and other industries, the demand for coatings in China has continued to grow, and competition among enterprises has been fierce. The market share of the top 100 coatings companies in the country has only reached 30%. The 2020 new crown virus pandemic has brought major crises and challenges to the Chinese coatings industry. The coatings industry has shifted from high-speed growth to medium-low growth. In 2020, the national coating output was 24.59 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 2.6%. Operating income was 305.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%.

With the large-scale vaccination of vaccines on a global scale, governments of various countries have gradually relaxed epidemic prevention and control measures, and people have gradually adapted to coexisting with the new crown virus for a long time, and the world has entered a post-epidemic era. The so-called post-epidemic era is not that the epidemic we originally imagined completely disappeared and everything returned to the previous situation. It is that the epidemic fluctuates from time to time, and may break out on a small scale at any time, returning from foreign countries and seasonal onsets, and more prolonged. An era that has had a profound impact on all aspects for a long time. Entering the post-epidemic era, China's coatings industry is showing new development trends.

1 "Hold together for warmth"

In the first half of 2021, many chemical raw materials have started a "skyrocketing" model. As a downstream coating company, affected by the rising prices of major raw materials such as titanium dioxide, epoxy resin, curing agent, and solvents, it has to be forced to adjust prices.

In order to cope with rising prices of upstream raw materials and increase the right to speak in raw material procurement, many coating companies plan to jointly form supply chain companies. On July 5, BNBM Waterproof Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNBM Building Materials Co., Ltd., signed an agreement with Keshun Co., Ltd. and Kailun Co., Ltd. to jointly establish a joint venture company with a joint investment of 50 million yuan. The name of the newly established joint venture is tentatively designated as Beixin Keshun Kailun Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. After the establishment of the joint venture, the joint venture company will be responsible for the unified procurement of common raw materials, equipment, and spare parts for all shareholders to achieve complementary advantages, improve raw material quality, and upgrade Competitiveness of the waterproof business of all shareholders.

Oriental Yuhong, also a giant in the coatings industry, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wanhua Chemical Group on July 7. The two parties reached a consensus on establishing a long-term and stable strategic partnership.

This kind of behavior of coating companies "holding together for warmth" indicates that major changes in the competitive landscape of the coatings industry are likely to occur in the future. Cases of mergers of coatings companies may appear in the future. By increasing market share, they will compete for market bargaining power.

2 functionalization

With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, higher requirements are also put forward for coating products. People are no longer satisfied with aesthetics, but pay more attention to their functionality. At present, the coating products on the market have developed a variety of functions such as fire prevention, insect prevention, heat insulation, and anticorrosion. The new crown epidemic has made people gradually pay attention to surface cleanliness and virus prevention, and the anti-virus function of coatings has also been sought after.

On July 15th, Nippon Paint Holdings Co., Ltd. announced that the PROTECTON brand anti-virus and anti-bacterial coating product developed by using visible light responsive photocatalyst technology has been proven to effectively inhibit the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and coatings. Alpha variant on the surface of the layer. In addition, many companies such as Kansai, BASF, Runli, and Dongpeng have launched antiviral coating products.

At present, the working principle of anti-viral coatings is very complicated. Each company has some patented technologies, such as "360 needle-shaped isolation and inactivation type" (Dongpeng Lvjia), "Lemon plant extract + VIRGIN technology" (Runli), "Silver ion killing mechanism" (Apollo paint), etc.

Research shows that the global anti-viral and anti-bacterial coating categories will maintain double-digit annual growth in the next five years, and the value of the anti-viral coating category is expected to reach 1.3 billion US dollars by 2026. The anti-virus and anti-bacterial coatings category has broad development prospects, and more companies will deploy this category in the future.

3Environmental protection

In order to meet the public's continuous improvement of environmental protection requirements, coating companies are actively developing green and environmentally friendly products. According to the classification of solvents, environmentally friendly coatings can be divided into water-based coatings and solvent-based coatings that use environmentally friendly solvents to control harmful substances within a safe range.

The biggest feature of water-based coatings is safety and environmental friendliness. However, due to the presence of moisture, water-based coatings have problems such as slow volatilization rate and high surface tension. Compared with solvent-based coatings, there is still a certain gap in gloss, fullness, rapid film formation process, and physical and chemical properties after early drying. , Which has affected the widespread application of water-based coatings.

Solvent-based coatings do not require high brushing conditions, and can be applied in a wide range of temperature and humidity. They have a large viscosity and are not easy to flow. At the same time, solvent-based coatings have a brighter gloss and a harder paint film. Choosing suitable green solvents will help the green development of the coating industry.