The TiO2 industry worldwide is encountering difficulties and challenges short term, although there are some signs of hope. The trade wars, the potential of recession in the European economy, and political tensions in the Middle East are showing up in trade statistics, and they directly relate to TiO2 demand.
Even though it can be considered to be still in the early state, China’s e-commerce will definitely grow fast in the near future, and enable a supportive consumer and supplier analysis. The data crawled from news and industry websites as well as from search engines and e-commerce platforms help to monitor, understand and forecast the trend of TiO2 in China and worldwide.
Economic sentiment remains strong globally, and is expected to remain so through 2018. Demand for TiO2 is robust, with both a strong housing market and healthy automobile sales. TiO2 demand growth for 2017 is forecast at around 2%, with 6.1 million tonnes in demand for 2017-2018.
Given the increased sales volumes so far in 2016, the TiO2 market has begun to feel tighter than it has in years, which is providing confidence to some producers that the worst is behind the industry for the near term.
Successive international TiO2 magnates raised their product prices in Dec., 2015. The market intelligence firm expects that after a short time this will prevent the TiO2 price in China's market from falling and it's even possible that it will cause the price to rise in early 2016.
A recent trip to China gave a clearer understanding of the inorganic pigments market, how China is responding to its slowing economy and the environmental problems it faces, and strategies that suppliers are forming to take on these trends.
What is clear is that a fresh wave of M&A activity is necessary for the long-term development of China's TiO2 industry. The market is currently saturated by small-scale producers, almost all of which churn out products of similarly inferior quality.
