In 2013, more than 2 million t of flame retardants were consumed worldwide.
Revenues of approximately USD 7.15 billion are expected to be generated in 2021 in this market segment. This is one of the results of a market study on flame retardants by Ceresana. According to the recently published study Asia-Pacific is the largest FR sales market with China accounting for almost 24 % of global demand. Even though the American market suffered losses in the previous years, in the construction industry in particular, North America continues to be the second largest sales market, followed by Western Europe. Driven by China and India, Asia-Pacific will gain market shares in the future. The Middle East and South America will be large growth markets as well; absolute figures in these regions are, however, considerably lower.
The market for brominated and chlorinated flame retardants is rapidly losing market shares to non-halogenated products. Due to product innovation, consumption of phosphoric flame retardants is increasing at much higher rates than was expected a couple of years ago. The highest increase at an AAGR of 5 % in the future is expected for products based on organophosphates, followed by products based on antimony oxide. In a global context, ATH (aluminum hydroxide) is the most commonly used type of flame retardant. Even though the market share held by brominated and chlorinated flame retardants is declining, absolute consumption continues to rise. In a regional context, the situation is more differentiated. Despite phosphorous-based products becoming very prominent in China as well, halogenated flame retardants are dominating this particular market so far. In both Western Europe and North America, ATH compounds account for about half of total market volume.