Freedonia Market Research Analyzes Global Valve Industry

Global demand for industrial valves is forecast to increase 4.4 percent annually through 2011 to $77.6 billion. Gains will be driven by a healthy outlook for the global economy, leading to increased fixed investment activity in key valve markets such as the US, China and Germany.  Valve demand in the energy production sector will also benefit from a pickup in primary energy consumption in mature markets like North America, as well as in developing valve markets such as Latin America. These and other trends, including market share and company profiles, are presented in World Industrial Valves, a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry market research firm.

The advanced nations of North America, Western Europe and the Asia/Pacific region (i.e., Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore) comprise mature markets for valves. Growth in valve demand in the US, Japan and Western Europe will trail the world average through 2011.  Growth will be much stronger in rapidly developing nations such as China, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and India.  Advances in valve demand in these areas will be driven by healthy economic and fixed investment growth, while an expanding market for more expensive automated valves and actuators will support overall valve gains in the US, Japan and Western Europe.

The global market for automatic valves will outpace that for conventional valves, due to the ongoing efforts of process manufacturers to improve operational efficiencies.  The strongest gains will be registered in sales of separately sold automatic actuators, which are used together with standard valves to allow for automated valve functions, and are less expensive than automatic control and regulator valves with actuators pre-installed.  Nevertheless, conventional valves will continue to account for 54 percent of total valve demand in 2011, due to their low cost relative to other highly-engineered automatic valves.

The largest and most advanced industrial valve industries are located in developed nations, particularly those which have large, well-developed home markets, technical expertise in manufacturing higher-value products, and access to factors of production such as capital and labor supplies.  This is made apparent by the fact that the US, Germany, Italy and Japan together accounted for approximately half of global valve shipments in 2006 in dollar terms.  China, however, is rapidly becoming a key player in the valve industry.  France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Taiwan are also sizable valve producers.  The largest net exporters of valves are Germany, Italy and Japan.

 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.