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The wipes market will continue to provide significant opportunities for nonwovens over the next five years as market developments and technological advancements increase overall value and global usage. According to Smithers Pira's recent market research, the volume of nonwovens used in the production of consumer and industrial wipes will increase from 1.2 million tons in 2018 to 1.63 million tons in 2023, an annual growth rate of 6.3 percent. It is also an increasingly lucrative market. Its global market value exceeded the $2 billion mark for the first time in 2017 and will reach $2.84 billion in 2023.

From a business perspective, this is a diversified market. Procter & Gamble (P & G) is the world's largest producer, but has only 14.5 percent of the global market. The next largest four companies account for about 20% of the market, which means there are still many opportunities for smaller companies.

Over-supply and under-supply

Of the various nonwoven technologies, spunlace materials remain the largest and fastest growing process for making wipe substrates. Airlaid is the second largest process.

In the field of spunlace, the booming demand for flushable wet wipes has driven the rapid expansion of global production capacity of dispersible spunlace wet netting. Since 2015, a total of 11 new wet spunlace production lines have been added worldwide, with an additional capacity of about 115000 tons. Most of these new lines were supplied by Voith in cooperation with Trutzler and Andritz. This expansion may bring some problems in the future, such as oversupply, enterprises need to optimize processes or develop new markets to maximize return on investment.

Airlaid faces a contrasting problem. Over the past decade, companies such as Georgia-Pacific have closed a series of production lines, which has reduced capacity.

Glatfelter is working to address the chronic lack of investment in this segment, adding a new production line at its Fort Smith plant in Arkansas, USA, which will increase annual production by 20000 tons.

Wipes for Home and Personal Care

Consumer wipes include baby, personal care and home care wipes. Baby wipes are the most important component, accounting for 73.7 of consumer wipes in 2018. It is also the most mature market and will be robbed of some market share by personal care wipes in the next five years.

Some of these changes can be attributed to the emergence of new and more segmented personal care wipes, such as adult or toddler wet toilet paper, which consumers previously used to handle with baby wipes. This trend is particularly prevalent in emerging regions.

Smithers Pira's analysis shows that adult wet toilet paper and toddler toilet care wipes will maintain the fastest growth between 2018-2023.

The growth drivers for home care wipes continue to be convenience and time saving. While some market segments, such as electrostatic cleaning wipes, have become the default choice for specific applications, other categories, such as bathroom cleaning wipes, can easily be replaced by liquid cleaners and paper towels.

Cleaning/disinfecting wipes are one of the top three categories of home care wipes and the most promising market segment between 2018 and 2023. The market is now more than $1.5 billion, especially the outbreak of avian influenza virus, Ebola virus, Zika virus and norovirus and other infectious diseases have promoted the development of this market. It is also the only segment of the home care wipes market that is growing at an above-average rate.

Industrial Applications

Industrial wipes are mainly aimed at enterprises, but some applications are similar to consumer wipes. In 2018, the industrial wipes market reached $3.38 million billion, accounting for only more than 20% of the global wipes market. In 2018, this market share will increase slightly. In this category, food service wipes will be the fastest growing market. New demands from end users are new products that can be optimized for service life or the use of more efficient and safer antimicrobials.

Emerging Markets

The traditional core markets are North America and Western Europe, which will still account for nearly 2/3 of the global market until 2023, although the largest growth will come from emerging markets. Asia is the world's third largest regional market, with a market capitalization of nearly $2.8 billion in 2018 and more than $4 billion in 2023. Household care wipes will also surpass baby wipes as the most profitable market for the first time, led by static elimination wipes, followed by cleaning/disinfecting wipes.

In 2018, China accounted for 61.6 per cent of Asian sales and 10.4 per cent of global sales, and will overtake the UK as the world's second-largest national market by 2023.

The fastest growth over the next five years will occur in South America, Central America and Eastern Europe. Despite the slowdown in economic growth due to economic problems in Venezuela and Brazil, the market for wipes in South and Central America is expected to see double-digit growth in value and volume between 2018 and 2023.

Eastern Europe will also experience strong growth between 2018 and 2023. The regional market was valued at less than $1 billion in 2018 and is expected to continue to climb above $1.6 billion by 2023, thanks largely to the region's top three consuming countries-Turkey, Russia and Poland.