Overview of Specialty Chemicals Industry

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but it is too low and we reach it."
Michaelangelo

The global market for chemical industry is currently a US$ 2 trillion out of which, the global Specialty chemicals industry account for sales of US$484 billion in 2006. Forty business segments in North America, Western Europe and Japan, with a combined market size of about US$340 billion, represented about 70% of total world Specialty chemicals sales in 2006. In that year, the world's five largest industries-active pharmaceutical ingredients & intermediates, pesticides, Specialty polymers, electronic chemicals, Oil field chemicals and construction chemicals-had a market share of about 43%. The ten largest segments accounted for 62% of total annual Specialty chemicals sales.

The following pie charts show world consumption of the major Specialty chemicals segments.

The applications of Specialty chemicals vary enormously; these are used as cosmetic additives, water treatment products, dyes, sanitation agents, plasticizers and ion-exchange resins etc. The Indian market of specialty chemicals is around US$ 7-8 billion, growing at the rate of 15% per year.