Tape market is growing faster than GDP

“The PSA tapes market is growing faster than GDP—specialty even stronger than commodity tapes—and we at tesa have set our targets accordingly,” reported Matthias von Schwerdtner while delivering his “Combined Global Market Update” curated from data provided by Afera’s Asian counterpart organisations at Afera’s 1st Global Tape Summit held in June. “This is why the average value per square metre of tape is growing.”

One of the first and most popular lectures of the Athens Conference programme, the market review focussed on the tape business’ players, megatrends and areas set for significant growth. Referring to economic setbacks, political tensions and changing supplies of raw materials, the corporate vice president development at tesa SE reassured Afera members, “Tape-related-companies spend lots of time trying to move their businesses forward, and then other things happen... but there are tons of opportunities and solutions to help this industry reach its targets.”

Increasing demand for specialty adhesive tapes, and China, will drive growth

The 2018 estimated value of the global tape market is $50 billion. The tape industry remains highly fragmented, with many SMEs and local players targeting niche markets, particularly in China, and a few large multinationals. The Chinese, whose $30 billion market continues to grow in value and global share, “have a 5-year plan in which they want to be leaders in certain fields of technology, and they’re pursuing this pretty aggressively,” Mr. von Schwerdtner said. “I think we as competitors have to watch out for this.”

The high growth of the specialty adhesive tape market is primarily due to the continued expansion of electronic products, auto-making and access to healthcare. Driving innovation programmes is key in introducing tapes into new applications and replacing other solutions.

Currently, 30% of tapes are water-based, with performance levels improving significantly. In the next few years, water-based adhesives and solvent-free systems are expected to gain an increasing share of the adhesives market in terms of volume, due to the trend toward environmental regulation, particularly in China.

Korea has also become an important player in Asia due to the rise of large electronics OEMs. “tesa is quite active in Korea because Samsung is a big player there,” shared Mr. von Schwerdtner, adding that the Global Tape Forum should consider reaching out to this market.

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