The American writer William Arthur Ward famously wrote:
“Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards.”
And as we know, the beepers and billboards are usually pretty elusive in the packaging industry. But the PMMI and Euromonitor have not only identified significant opportunities, but also recently shared some valuable insight into the global packaging market over the next three years. If you missed this excellent webcast from Packaging Digest, here’s a snapshot of the key statistics to 2015.
Where in the world?
As I mentioned in my last blog, the fastest overall packaging sector growth is expected in Asia-Pacific. It’s already the largest packaging market outside the USA and is expanding much faster than any other region worldwide.
Among the developing markets, Latin America and Eastern Europe are the next largest at the moment. But the fastest recent growth has been in the MEA region (Middle East & Africa) and Latin America – a trend I expect to continue.
The most attractive opportunities vary dramatically by region. Euromonitor’s research looked at the five biggest packaging markets: Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America and North America. It analysed the size of different categories today and anticipated growth to 2015, with some very interesting conclusions.
Milking the global opportunity
Suppliers to the dairy industry fare well across the board – it is the biggest sector (in terms of retail units) in four of the five regions (second only to tobacco in Asia-Pacific) but whereas forecast cumulated annual growth is below 2% in Europe and North America, in Latin America it is 5% and in Asia Pacific, over 6%.
Drinking to good health
Suppliers of beverage and water packaging materials and equipment including PET resin and bottles, glass, pouches, cans, cartons, blowmoulders, dosing and filling machines etc, will find the biggest growth opportunities in Asia Pacific’s juice, tea, local speciality drinks and bottled water markets. Sports and energy drinks are predicted to swell over 9% in Latin America in the next three years and will also be Western Europe’s fastest growing category. Juices and bottled water will demonstrate growth of around 5% in Latin America and are also the two fastest-growing categories in Eastern Europe’s food and drink industry, at just under 3%.
Getting in the know
Euromonitor’s research proves that not all global opportunities are created equal. It’s critical to obtain objective, third-party research to evaluate the true potential of your product before committing too much time or money. Its findings also reiterate how quickly the packaging industry is evolving and how huge opportunities are developing all over the world. The market isn’t sitting still, and neither can its suppliers.
Helping industrial companies identify and exploit global opportunity is our passion. If you’d like to know how we can help you find and achieve new business potential, get in touch.
My thanks again to the World Packaging Organisation and the PMMI for their insight into the global packaging market, and to Packaging Digest for hosting the webcast. You can listen to it on demand here.
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