Accounting for only 10% of the market share, when can domestic Marine coatings enterprises break through the dilemma?

Looking at the history of paint development, it is not difficult to find that the major coatings have their own development trajectory in their respective fields. Someone has been lurking for a long time, and he flies into the sky; Some people play it steady, only want to trickle; There are people out there, hoping for overnight success. Of course, there are also people who hate that iron does not become steel, and have sought development for a long time, but still do not succeed.

Marine paint industry, is such a legendary color in a paint industry, for many years, how many corporate brands prostrate under its skirt.

Marine paint is an important raw material for the Marine industry, and its cost accounts for the proportion of the cost of the whole ship is generally 5%-20%. The performance and coating quality of Marine coatings directly affect the ship's anti-corrosion protection, sailing state and fuel cost.

Ship paint is composed of ship primer, ship bottom anti-rust paint, ship bottom anti-fouling paint, ship waterline paint series, ship hull and superstructure paint, all kinds of ship cabin paint - ballast water tank paint, oil tank paint, drinking water tank paint, dry cargo tank paint and a series of paints.

At present, the maintenance coatings used by ships on the market are mainly the following four kinds: chlorinated rubber paint, epoxy paint, alkyd paint, polyurethane paint.

The development of Marine coatings market is closely related to the development of the Marine industry. At present, China, South Korea and other Asian regions are the world's major shipbuilding markets, and the demand for Marine coatings is large. Since 2002, the Marine coatings market in Asia has grown steadily with an average annual growth rate of 6% to 8%. At present, Asia accounts for nearly 60% of the global Marine coatings market, and the corresponding terminals are also highly concentrated in Asia, and ship maintenance requires a large amount of coatings. In 2007, the size of the Asian Marine coatings market was about $2.69 billion.

According to the statistics of Clarkson Research Company, in 2020, the global shipbuilding new order volume is 59.33 million DWT, of which China's shipbuilding new order volume is 2893 DWT, accounting for 48.8% of the global total new order volume, and South Korea's shipbuilding new order volume accounts for 41.4%;

In terms of shipbuilding completions, in 2020, the global shipbuilding completions totaled 89.44 million deadweight tons, of which China's shipbuilding completions were 3853 deadweight tons, accounting for 43.1% of the global total completions, South Korea accounted for 27.3%, and Japan accounted for 25.2%.

From the perspective of regional market demand, the demand for Marine coatings in the Asia-Pacific region accounts for 65% of the global market share, and the newly built ships in China, South Korea and Japan play a major role in promoting the Marine coatings market.

In 2020, China received about 44% of the global order volume, ranking first in the world after four years.

Rough calculation, the domestic annual shipbuilding completion volume of 43 million deadweight tons, the market share of Marine coatings required by major shipyards is about 7 billion yuan (excluding fishing boats, offshore boats), and ship maintenance coatings are nearly 2 billion yuan.

The demand for China's Marine market has also further stimulated the strategy and strength of Marine coating giants to invest in the Chinese market, and in these years, quickly occupied the domestic market and firmly grasped the market share. Compared with the accelerated expansion of foreign giants, domestic Marine coatings companies only account for 10% of the market share in the entire Marine coatings.

According to the data, the global Marine coatings market is about $4 billion in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of about 5.6% in the next few years. From the perspective of Marine coatings varieties, the anti-fouling coatings market accounts for a relatively large proportion, and its scale is expected to reach 2.5 billion US dollars by 2027.

The entire Marine coatings market share has been occupied by several large foreign brands for a long time. It is understood that in 2021, Jotun ranked first with $642 million in sales revenue, Zhongtu Chemical ranked second with $622.5 million in sales revenue, and Akzonobel ranked third with $530 million in sales revenue, and the cumulative sales revenue of these three brands was $1,774.5 billion, accounting for 44.86% of the global Marine coatings market share.

In addition, Hempel, PPG, Diamond Chemical, Nippon Coatings, Sherandwick, Kansai Coatings, and Lipama ranked 4-10, respectively, with sales revenue of $508 million, $480 million, $300 million, $280 million, $120 million, $110 million, and $100 billion, respectively.

Why can't domestic Marine coatings develop?

Start late, the overall hard strength is not enough

China's ship coating is accompanied by the rise of China's shipbuilding industry, but there is still a big gap between the ship coating technology and foreign countries, which is mainly reflected in the long painting cycle, low efficiency and high cost.

China's vast sea area and rich Marine resources provide favorable conditions for vigorously developing Marine undertakings. In the 1980s, with the migration of the world shipbuilding industry to East Asia, China's shipbuilding industry gradually became a more important part of industrial manufacturing, and formed the industrial layout of the Bohai Sea area, the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. Marine coatings along with the ship manufacturing industry has a substantial growth, in 2005, the new shipbuilding coatings and ship repair coatings totaled 673,000 tons, China reached about 210,000 tons. Until now, the market share is rising year by year, and once became the world's first shipbuilding country.

In recent years, the demand for Marine coatings has increased by 30% per year, and Marine coatings account for a considerable part of Marine coatings. There are many manufacturers of Marine coatings in China, such as Shanghai Kelin, Qingdao Haijian, Ningbo, Guangzhou Paint Factory, etc., which developed earlier after the reform and opening up, Shanghai Haisheng, Jiangsu Lanling, Changzhou Special, Wujin Shipbuilding, Zhoushan Paint, etc., and joint ventures include Shanghai International, Shanghai Zhongtu, Tianjin Kansai, Shenzhen Haihong, Jodun Ocean, Shima (Kunshan) Co., LTD.

The rise of these Marine coating plants has promoted the development of Marine coatings in China.

In recent years, about 75% of orders in the Asian shipping market have come from China. The rapid growth of the Asian shipbuilding industry will undoubtedly help promote the orderly development of the Marine coatings industry.

Although the market demand has gone up, the domestic Marine coatings independent brands and technologies have a significant gap with international foreign brands. Some Japanese coating companies are optimistic about the development potential of the Chinese market and have begun to shift their business focus to the Chinese market. In addition, the US and European paint manufacturers are also moving closer to Asia, which makes the competition within the industry more intense. At present, 80%-90% of the Marine coatings market share in China has been seized by foreign brands, almost monopolizing the entire high-end Marine coatings market, and the market share of Chinese Marine coatings brands is only about 10%.

Domestic independent brands with a certain scale and strength, such as Hilong Holdings, Shuangrui ships, etc., most of the focus on the low-end Marine paint market, and the sales volume is small, and the foreign mainstream Marine paint brands are in a weak position in competition.

At present, the domestic Marine coating industry mainly has the following problems:

1. The depth of ship painting production design is not enough, and the concept of shell outfitting integration is not strong;

2, the degree of mechanization and automation of ship painting technology and equipment is not high, resulting in high standards of rust removal and painting, and the problem of implementation is more serious;

3, pretreatment quality and workshop primer performance need to be improved;

4, ship production management needs to be strengthened, due to other types of construction caused by coating film damage and the problem of multiple painting is very serious.

The gap between domestic and foreign aggression has widened

Nowadays, many internationally renowned Marine coating manufacturers have set up factories in China. Especially since 2019, many foreign enterprises are more optimistic about the Chinese market and have turned their strategic development vision to China, bringing fresh blood and challenges to the domestic Marine coatings market.

The reporter learned that in recent years, foreign-funded chemical enterprises have invested in construction projects and laid foundations in China, with an investment amount of more than 70 billion yuan. Akzonobel, PPG and other large enterprises have taken the lead in investing in China.

At present, Akzonobel has more than 7,500 employees in China, accounting for 17% of Akzonobel's global workforce, making China the largest market for Akzonobel in the world in terms of "number of employees". In 2020, Akzonobel's Greater China sales accounted for approximately 16% of Akzonobel's total global sales revenue, and China is Akzonobel's largest market in the world.

In June last year, Akzonobel held the opening ceremony of the "Marine and Protective Coatings R&D Laboratory" at the Shanghai Technology Center, which will further enhance and integrate Akzonobel's R&D and innovation capabilities.

Denmark's Hempel, Britain's Intellectual Property, Norway's Jorton, Britain's Earle, Japan's Kansai and Shimadzu (now PPG) have invested and set up factories in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Tianjin and Kunshan.

At the time of repeated epidemic and continuous price increase, domestic and foreign enterprises are staging a fierce Marine coatings market battle, and the Asian Marine coatings market is the main battlefield of the partition war without smoke. This for the domestic ship brand, worry coexist.

The problem is that foreign industry giants lead domestic brands too much in technology, scale and experience, and it is difficult to erode the market of domestic brands.

However, from a good point of view, domestic brands can learn a lot of advantages from this competition, such as advanced technological innovation model, management experience, market concepts, etc., can become beneficial "nutrition", but also change the phenomenon of some enterprises "behind closed doors", born in sorrow and death in happiness.

It is not advisable to work behind closed doors, in this era, conservatism will be a fatal mistake, an inattentive, is irreparable. Looking at the overall situation, the combination of technology, price and service is fundamental for enterprises to win the market. For domestic Marine coating enterprises, this development road is obviously still a long way to go.