Asia drives the Cleanroom Market
Sales of cleanroom hardware will rise from $3 billion this year to $4 billion in 2008, says the McIlvaine Company of Northfield, IL in its online continually updated, Cleanrooms: World Markets. The report also forecasts sales of consumables for cleanrooms to rise from $4.6 billion to $6.4 billion during the same period.
This annual growth in demand of over eight percent is attributable to the Asian countries. In 2008 Asian countries will occupy four of the five top leadership positions in purchases of disposable cleanroom clothing. They will hold eight of the twelve top leadership positions as well.
Disposable Cleanroom Clothing Purchases ($ millions)
Country 2008
United States 141
Japan 109
South Korea 60
Taiwan 59
China 39
United Kingdom 29
Thailand 25
Germany 25
Malaysia 24
France 23
Singapore
14
Philippines 14
While Western countries still hold the edge in purchases of cleanroom hardware and consumables in the life science areas, Asian countries are leading the way in electronics. China is the fastest growing supplier of semiconductors. Taiwan and South Korea have become leading suppliers of chips. Japan, after years of slippage, is again becoming a major investor in semiconductor cleanrooms.
Flat panel displays and memory storage are two areas where most of the cleanroom purchases are in Asia. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are major manufacturers of flat panel displays. These plants require huge cleanrooms. In fact, the largest flat panel display cleanrooms are even larger than the largest semiconductor cleanrooms.
In memory storage, the industry is poised for growth in excess of 20 percent this year. Manufacturing of hard disk drives takes place in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand. In fact, exports of hard disk drives accounts for over three percent of Thailand’s GDP.
China is starting to siphon off some of the new investment in disk drive plants and is rapidly becoming a major purchaser of cleanroom hardware and consumables. China is also becoming a major supplier of cleanroom consumables including gloves, wipes and clothing.
More information on Cleanrooms: World Markets is found by clicking on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/cleanroom.html .
Bob McIlvaine
847-784-0012