Research Overview

Frost & Sullivan’s annual outlook for the plastics and composites industry provides an overview of the industry in 2021 and highlights disruptive, transformational, and competitive trends that are expected to impact industry growth in 2022. The protracted disruption of the supply chain because of natural calamities, ensuing force majeure events, energy shortages, container shortages, and freight challenges, continued to drive upward pressure on resin prices in 2021. While overall consumption registered a recovery of 4.5% in 2021 (in terms of volume), the unprecedented rise in resin prices resulted in revenue registering a robust growth of 16.1% in 2021. Sustainability and circular economy are the most important issues in the plastic industry. Though the pandemic and the ensuing disruption served as short-term impediments to the shift away from single-use plastics, 2022 is expected to witness a resurgence in downward pressure as legislations, restrictions, taxes, and bans are introduced (or will take effect) across geographies. Stakeholders across the value chain and end industries are increasingly ramping up collaborative development of circular material flows in the wake of both tightening regulations and growing customer demand. Chemical recycling will be a mainstream, effective means to achieving circularity. Higher customer demand and the ever-growing investment in supply will augur well for commercialization and scaling up of biobased, greener plastics.

While some Mega Trends propel growth, others will challenge the status quo. Diversified industry majors are expected to continue scouting for measures to strategically enable the shift of focus toward higher margins, and sustainable and less-cyclical businesses.This research service analyzes the global plastics and composites industry in 2021 across various applications and its outlook for 2022. The key material types analyzed in the study include polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polystyrene (PS), engineering plastics, high-performance plastics (HPPs), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyurethanes (PU), and so on. The main end industries covered include automotive, building and construction, consumer goods and household, electrical and electronics, medical, packaging, and others (such as sports and leisure, agriculture, footwear, wind turbine applications, and oil and gas pipelines). The study identifies the top 8 predictions for 2022 and discusses the potential implications for each industry segment. Key growth opportunities, companies to watch out for, and strategic imperatives for success are also provided. The base year is 2021, and the forecast year is 2022.