World Desalination Products and Services Demand to reach $13 Billion in 2013

World demand for desalination products and services is projected to increase 9.1 percent annually to $13 billion in 2013.  Areas with scarce or compromised water supplies will increasingly turn to thermal or membrane desalination techniques to supply water to households, industrial users and, to a lesser extent, commercial consumers such as tourist destinations and agricultural interests.  Much of the expansion of desalination resulting from technological advances will be in the form of membrane-based technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO), although similar improvements will allow multiple-effect distillation (MED) to increase its share of the thermal desalination segment.  These and other trends, including market share and product segmentation, are presented in World Water Desalination, a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry research firm.

Traditionally, desalination has been considered a last resort, mainly as a result of costs.  When desalination first became a commercially significant technology in the 1960s and 1970s, it was restricted to areas with no viable alternatives: areas with essentially no fresh water supply, as is the case in some parts of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caribbean; or where local water supplies were so compromised that they could not be rendered useful by conventional water treatment techniques such as sedimentation and filtration.  But technological advances have brought improved equipment, energy savings and, as a result, cost reductions that have allowed desalination techniques to become more accessible. 

Although the desalination industry has outgrown the limited “no choice” areas, the Middle East and North Africa will continue to dominate the desalination market, accounting for well over half of the world’s desalination capacity, and demand for desalination products and services.  There will be significant gains in the region’s largest markets -- Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- but growth will be faster yet in countries which have only recently added significant desalination capacity, such as Algeria, Israel and Libya.  Gains are also expected to be healthy in some of the areas where desalination is seen as one among a number of water solutions (along with conservation and recycling).  The Asia/Pacific region is expected to be the fastest growing region through 2013.  Australia is in the process of adding substantial seawater RO desalination capacity along its coasts, and the Chinese government has made desalination a high-priority facet of its broader efforts to address decades of neglecting and abusing its water resources in the interest of economic modernization. 

The Freedonia Group is a leading international business research company, founded in 1985, that publishes more than 100 industry research studies annually. This industry analysis provides an unbiased outlook and a reliable assessment of an industry and includes product segmentation and demand forecasts, industry trends, demand history, threats and opportunities, competitive strategies, market share determinations and company profiles.