GIA (Global Industry Analysts, Inc.) has released a new comprehensive global report on glass gackaging markets. According to the report, the global market for Glass Packaging is destined to exceed USD…
GIA (Global Industry Analysts, Inc.) has released a new comprehensive global report on glass gackaging markets. According to the report, the global market for Glass Packaging is destined to exceed USD 36 billion by the year 2015. Even if facing a growing threat from plastics, the sector is forecast to undergo sustained growth as glass continues to remain a superior packaging choice. Further growth will come from environmental concerns related to other packaging alternatives and rising disposable incomes and retail boom in the rapidly developing countries of Asia-Pacific, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America. The glass packaging market, heavily affected by reduced margins due to pressure from higher input costs of soda ash and natural gas in 2007-2008, was damaged even more by the global economic crisis. Looking to the near future, the market should remain stagnant or grow slightly until 2011, gaining momentum thereafter. Europe is forecast to remain leader, being the largest geographic market for glass packaging, used mainly for consumer beverages, followed by food. Asia-Pacific should post strong gains in the near future, mainly thanks to good performance from the Chinese and Indian markets, also caused by the increase in consumption of alcoholic beverages. Further growth is expected to come from specific regional markets paralleling the consumption trends in food and beverages sector, such as flavoured mineral water in Turkey, and growing beer consumption in Russia. The greatest threat to the glass packaging industry comes from plastics, which have seen high growth mainly due to technological advancements, along with the material“s inherent recyclability and longer lasting properties. However, thanks to increasing health and environmental concerns over chemicals associated with plastics and other alternatives glass is witnessing renewed focus. In fact, glass containers can be fully recycled and reused, and can be easily sorted for recycling based on different colours and shapes, and the glass industry is carrying out research initiatives to develop lighter yet stronger glass containers, along with recycling efforts to increase the collection of higher quality cullet to make glass containers. The global glass packaging market is greatly fragmented, except in the US and Europe, where the top three players constitute about 80-90% of the total sales. In both Asia-Pacific and South America, the glass packaging industry has numerous players, most of which are regional, serving a limited geographic area. The report from GIA – Glass Packaging: A Global Strategic Business Report, provides a comprehensive review of market trends, product profile, end-use applications, technological developments, and recent corporate activity. Analysis for major geographic markets such as US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Russia, Asia-Pacific and South America is presented. Historic and current and future value and unit analytics in terms of end-use applications including Consumer Beverages, Food, and Others for the period 2000 through 2015 are provided.