The market demand for engineering plastics continues to increase, and the industry has huge development potential
Engineering plastics refer to industrial plastics used as industrial parts or housing materials. According to different properties, engineering plastics can be divided into general engineering plastics and special engineering plastics. Special engineering plastics mainly include polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polyimide (P), polysulfone (PSU), polyetheretherketone (PEEK), liquid crystal polymer (LCP), etc. Engineering plastics have the characteristics of good electrical insulation properties, strong heat resistance, high mechanical strength, and high comprehensive performance. In recent years, they have been widely used in automobiles, construction, chemicals, electronics, aerospace and other fields, and the industry has good development prospects.
In recent years, with the continuous development of domestic automobile, machinery manufacturing, electronic and electrical industries, the domestic engineering plastics market demand has continued to increase. According to the《2022》 issued by the Industrial Research Center -The 2026 China Engineering Plastics Industry International Market Investment Prospects Analysis and Investment Strategy Suggestions Report” shows that the domestic engineering plastics market demand in 2020 will be 6.35 million tons, and the market demand will increase to 6.71 million tons in 2021 tons, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%. The domestic engineering plastics market demand is growing year by year. In the future, with the continuous emergence of domestic high value-added emerging industries, the domestic engineering plastics market has broad room for development.
The upstream of the engineering plastics industry chain is raw material suppliers, which mainly include petrochemical products such as olefins and aromatic hydrocarbons, as well as chemical raw materials such as formaldehyde, PA66, and bisphenol A. The midstream is engineering plastics manufacturers, with major companies including Tongyi Co., Ltd., Kingfa Technology, and Puli Special, Watt Co., Ltd., Yuntianhua, Sanfangxiang, Jiangsu Boyun, Guoli Technology, etc.; the downstream is the application market, which mainly includes automobiles, 3C electronics, household appliances, medical equipment, aerospace, etc.
Engineering plastics is a technology-intensive industry. This industry started earlier in foreign countries and has strong technical reserves. Therefore, my country’s engineering plastics market has been occupied by foreign companies for a long time. Although my country’s engineering plastics industry started late, driven by national policy support and demand growth, the domestic industry has developed rapidly. At present, domestic companies are accelerating to occupy the domestic market share. In 2021, domestic companies have occupied 37% of the market share, surpassing the 35% share of foreign companies. In the future, as domestic companies continue to increase investment in technology research and development, domestic engineering plastics brands in the domestic market are expected to fully realize domestic substitution.
Industry Analysts said that there are currently many participants in my country’s engineering plastics market, but most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises, and there are fewer enterprises above designated size. , industry concentration is low and market competition is fierce. From the perspective of regional distribution, East China is currently the region with the largest number of engineering plastics companies in my country, accounting for 69.2% of the country’s total; followed by the central and southern regions and northwest regions, accounting for 18.5% and 6.9% respectively. In the future, as the domestic engineering plastics industry continues to develop in the direction of clustering, the domestic market will gradually move closer to leading companies, industry concentration will continue to increase, and the market structure will continue to be optimized. The domestic engineering plastics industry has huge development potential.