Adhesive Tapes Market

Adhesive tapes find widespread applications in numerous end-use industries that include automotive, electronics & electrical, medical, construction, paper, and printing industry. With an increase in demand from these industries, coupled with the healthy growth of these industries is boosting the growth of the global market during the forecast period. Further, socio-economic developments such as an increase in middle-class population and rising disposable income, especially in emerging countries such as China and India are driving the growth of the global market. However, fluctuating raw material prices are likely to hinder the growth of the global market during the review period. Nevertheless, the projected rise in demand for adhesive tapes in medical and packaging applications and increased investments in renewable adhesive tapes are likely to create a lucrative opportunity for the global adhesive tapes market in the coming future

With the millions of automobiles produced every year, the demand for adhesive tapes has persistently increased over the past few years. Adhesive tapes find a broad range of interior and exterior automotive applications and are widely been used in bonding doors, cockpits, powertrain, roof, seats, glasses, and electronics. Some of the automotive applications of adhesive tapes include attachment part mounting, automotive electronics, cable mounting, hole covering, interior mounting, masking, mirror assembling, permanent paint protection, security labeling, surface protection, and wire harnessing. Manufacturers offer a variety of adhesive tapes such as structural adhesives, double-sided tapes, foam tapes and renewable adhesive tapes to cater to the ever-growing demand from original equipment manufacturers (OEM), component suppliers and supply chain partners.

Automobile production across the globe has surpassed 91 million units in 2019. This is mainly due to the increased production in emerging economies, such as China, India, and Mexico. The automotive market in Asia-Pacific is one of the fastest-growing industries in recent years, which is expected to dominate the market in the coming decade. Moreover, increased focus on car individualization, e-mobility, and growing demand for low-VOC products are some of the significant trends dominating the automotive market globally.

Furthermore, the demand for adhesive tapes is increasing in electric vehicles in battery applications such as battery trays, frame, and cover attachment, battery module, etc. Adhesive tapes offer exceptional properties such as compatibility with a wide range of materials from metals to polymers, preserves battery performance, and resists moisture and eliminate stress concentration. With the growing concern regarding global warming and the increasing adoption of electric vehicles, the demand for adhesives tapes is expected to increase during the review period. The demand for lightweight vehicles is also supported by the stringent regulations of regulatory bodies, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency, European Legislation, and Bharat Stage Emission Standards, to protect the environment and curb CO2 emissions.

The adhesive tapes are currently used in applications such as automotive, medical, electrical & electronics, and building & construction. The scope of adhesive tapes is widening in applications, such as consumer appliances, food industry, packaging, metal manufacturing, industrial and institutional applications. It is extensively used in packaging applications, such as box sealing tapes, filament tapes, film tapes, label protection tapes, and pouch tapes, amongst others. The rise in e-commerce could site an intense focus on packaging requirements, along with last-mile-delivery innovations. Moreover, they are widely used in food packaging from inner packaging such as resealable bag closure or for outer packaging such as carton sealing, frozen food boxes, etc. This is expected to create new growth avenues for the players in this market.

Further, adhesive tapes are also widely used in the construction industry in furniture, windows, trims, elevators, and self-adhesive air and waterproofing system for commercial and residential buildings. In the metal industry, it is used for securing the fastening of metal coils, metal bundling, and metal edge, and surface protection. They are also widely used in commercial appliances such as refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, freezers, and washing machines. Apart from these, adhesive tape has found application in the bonding chip module in smart cards.

Thus, the widening scope of applications of adhesive tapes is likely to offer lucrative opportunities for the players in this market.

Adhesive tapes generally consist of backing material or carrier and adhesives. There are numerous types of backing materials such as filmic tapes (polyvinylchloride, polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyethylene terephthalate), non-woven tapes, polyethylene foam tapes, paper, and a cloth or fabric tapes. The prices of polymers such as polyvinylchloride, polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyethylene terephthalate are mainly dependent on crude-oil prices. Furthermore, resins such as acrylic, epoxy, rubber-based, and silicone are also affected by the fluctuations in crude prices. The slow change of global feedstock for basic chemicals needed in the production of adhesives raw materials has a major impact on the price level of raw materials. Thus, the dependency of adhesive tapes on crude products makes it vulnerable to price fluctuations. Crude oil prices are highly volatile owing to the major influence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) which controls 40% of the world’s supply of oil. OPEC sets production levels and can influence the prices of oil and gas by decreasing or increasing production. In addition, changes in supply and demand result in fluctuations in oil prices. When supply exceeds the demand, prices fall, and vice versa. Moreover, political turmoil, natural disasters, plant explosion or shut down, and production costs (refining) also affect the prices. Considering all these factors, it can be concluded that the volatility in crude oil prices significantly affects the raw material prices.