China Automotive Composites Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

China Automotive Composites Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The China automotive composites market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 13% during the forecasted period (2020 - 2025)

Key Highlights

• Year 2019 was one of the most challenging years for the global automotive industry, major market around the world are seeing decline in sales. However, China has retained its position as the largest passenger vehicle market in the world. In first half of 2019, China automotive production and sales reached 12.13 million and 12.32 million units respectively
• Presently, composite materials, like thermoplastics and reinforced glass, have drawn the attention of carmakers, making them focus on sourcing better, tensile, and lighter components in the manufacture of automobile units.
• Factors such as increasing demand for lightweight material from the automotive industry and growing focus on fuel economy are expected to be major drivers for the market. However, high costs associated with carbon fiber composites, and glass fiber composites is hindering the growth of the market, as their usage in low-cost vehicles could drastically increase the prices of such vehicles.
• The low recyclability of composites is also a restraint for their penetration in entry-level passenger vehicles. However, collaborations of the OEMs with suppliers (due to rising demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, growing lightweight electrical vehicle segment, and major automobile giants, like BMW and Nissan, trying to replace their existing metal parts with composite fibers) imply the scope and booming opportunity that the market is anticipated to offer over the forecast period.

Key Market TrendsIncreasing Exports of Chinese Automotive

Chinese automotive exports are heavily influenced by global economy and environmental regulations. Recent changes in the regulations across the world has had little to no impact on the growth rate of sales in 2019. In 2019, around 285,000 commercial vehicles and 725,000 passenger cars were exported from China. Since a few years back, China has been world’s largest car production country. Over one quarter of the global passenger cars were manufactured in China in 2018, exceeding the overall share of the European Union. In other car markets, Chinese car brands enjoy a significant cast advantage over imported cars from international automobile manufacturers. Thus, other developing countries and emerging markets were the main export destinations for Chinese vehicle exports. With rules and regulations changing around the world, Chinese composite material manufacturers are expected to gain momentum for light-weight composite materials manufacturing, this paired with low labour cost and high technological manufacturing this market is expected to boom during the forecasted period. In 2017, the carbon fiber market alone reached 23.5 Kt, soaring from 19.9% from a year earlier and sharing 27.9% global total. The figure rose to 26.6 Kt in 2018. In 2018, China produced 12% of the world carbon fiber and ranked 3rd in the global production. With increasing automotive production, the composite material production is expected to boom during the forecasted period.

Growing Demand for Lightweight Materials

The automotive industry has been focusing on vehicle weight for decades as vehicle weight have direct impact on driving dynamics and fuel consumption. Due to the high cost of potential lightweight solutions and consumers’ limited willingness to pay for weight reduction in automotive, the use of costly lightweight materials has so far been limited.

As governments from around the world are implementing stringent emission regulations and even are planning to set even higher emissions standards in the coming years, the importance of lightweight materials will increase.

According to European directives and standards (2000/53/EC-End Life 0f Vehicles), US Department of Transportation, and US EPA, the automotive manufacturing industry has to follow certain norms in regarding environmentally friendly recycling and dismantling of vehicles, higher fuel efficiency standards, and increase in use of recyclable materials which offers high potential for the China automotive composites market to grow during the forecasted period.

China is one of the leaders in the global automotive fiberglass market with a significant share of 28% by the end of 2020. China generates the highest revenue for fiberglass in the Asia-Pacific region. The automotive fiberglass market in the country has a high growth potential driven by a huge increase in the demand for lightweight automotive vehicles. The growth of this market is also driven by the technological developments in the manufacturing process of fiberglass.

Fiberglass is the most preferred and economic composite material in the industrial and automotive sectors. The reinforcement fiber materials employed in the automotive industry are usually made of glass fibers. Fiberglass is lightweight, has relatively high tensile strength and is easy to handle and manufacture. Fiberglass is widely used in the automotive industry due to its lightweight and high durability.

With technological advancements Chinese manufacturers are expected to see raise in demand for car exports which intern will increase demand for automotive composites as manufacturers are looking to reduce car weight in order to keep up with emission norms across the world. The automobile industry is highly dependent on the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, owing to the high emissions of the automotive units. The move by the EPA to raise the miles per gallons (mpg) standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025, has actually helped the industry, as the automotive industry concluded that the only way to get to those mileage standards is by manufacturing lightweight vehicles. The traditional metal die casting industry is also facing threat from the newly emerging composites market as composites provide the same physical properties and are much lighter than metal castings. Companies have started using materials like carbon fiber and glass fiber composites to make vehicles lightweight and fuel-efficient. The usage of glass fiber composites aids in reducing vehicle by 25%. Apart from carbon fiber, automobile manufacturers have been using glass fiber composites in the manufacturing of numerous automotive components. With the demand for lightweight vehicles increasing rapidly in developing economies, the market for carbon fiber composites is projected to grow at a fast pace during the forecast period.

Competitive Landscape

The China automotive composites market is Fragmented. Industry participants are expected to expect intensive competition owing to aggressive strategies, including acquisitions, pricing, merges, and new product development. Significant players in the market are Hexcel Corporation, Mitsubishi Chemical Carbon Fiber and composite Inc, SGL carbon, and Toray Industries Inc.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support

Companies Mentioned

IBM Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Internap Corporation
Packet Inc. (An Equinix Inc. Company)
Scaleway Inc.
Amazon Web Services Inc
Rackspace Inc.
CenturyLink, Inc.
LightEdge Solutions, Inc

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