As some of us might know Carbon Fiber is growing at its most rapid rate ever due to the incredible tech advancements in manufacturing and the sky rocking demand. Carbon fiber has so many uses to advance and improve industries that this demand will most likely continue to grow and carbon fiber will continue to advance. This Carbon Fiber for Global Markets Forecast Report covers years 2013 through 2016 and give RW Carbon, its audience and the industry an idea of where carbon fiber is going in the past to near future. This report supplies data and information on supply and demand, competition patterns and price analysis of the global carbon fiber industry. In addition to these it also covers importing, exporting, operations, manufacturing, and development forecasts for some of the top carbon fiber manufacturers in the industry.
Carbon fiber is becoming the next generation of high strength and light weight material for manufacturing in fields such as: aerospace, wind power, sports leisure and or course the automotive industry. In 2013 the automotive and wind power industries where calculated to consume the largest amount of carbon fiber in the industry, having over 60% of the usage and demand. Closely behind these two was the aerospace industry, which is constantly finding new ways to replace outdated materials for carbon fiber, making the demands for carbon fiber exponentially grow in this field. Bringing up the rear is the sports and leisure industries with a much smaller demand growth, but this year we expect to see the higher growth rate than in previous years.
In 2013 alone, the carbon fiber industry produced a whopping 120,000 tons, which was mostly contributed by Japan and the U.S. The top 5 carbon manufacturers (Toray, Teijin, Zoltek, Mitsubishi Rayon and Formosa Plastics) contributed to over 55% of that amount.
Close behind the Japanese and U.S. markets is no other than China. The China carbon fiber industry has been developing fast under the stimulation of policies and the gap between supply and demand in recent years. In 2009-2013, China’s carbon fiber capacity grew up to 53.5%, reaching 18,000 tons or so in 2013. However, the immature technology of Chinese carbon fiber manufacturers resulted in low quality, high production costs and poor profitability. In 2013, China’s actual carbon fiber output was only about 3,000 tons, with the import dependency rate of around 76%. In 2013, there were more than 20 Chinese carbon fiber manufacturers, but only a couple were able to produce enough to be recognized in this report.
To learn more about the future forecasts of carbon fiber you can take a look at some of the links below or email RW Carbon at info@rwcarbon.com.