In 2024, the global market share of protective gloves is still in a turbulent period, with risks of corporate market manipulation still present. How to maintain existing market shares, strive for cost reduction and efficiency improvement to ensure the continuity of new customer orders, while enhancing product quality, cost-price control, and diversification of products into key competitive factors for enterprises.
Against this backdrop, from March 20th to March 21st, the Global Conference on Protective Gloves Industry and Upstream and Downstream Supply and Demand Exchange, hosted by Longzhong Information, was successfully held in Zibo, Shandong. The conference gathered over a hundred protective gloves-related enterprises, providing an industry supply and demand exchange platform for protective glove products, authoritative technical experts sharing, and multi-dimensional analysis of the entire industry's development situation. Focusing on industry hotspots, assessing industry trends, and jointly seeking a healthy development path for the industry.
Ms. Miao Qidi, a consulting advisor at Frost & Sullivan (Frost & Sullivan, abbreviated as "Frost & Sullivan") Greater China, was invited to attend the conference and delivered a speech on "The Current Situation and Development Trends of Disposable Gloves Market."
Ms. Miao Qidi, Consulting Advisor at Frost & Sullivan Greater China
Ms. Miao Qidi briefly analyzed the global market, export markets, and production and sales environment for disposable gloves. She stated that the continuously mutating strains during the pandemic have led to repeated COVID-19 outbreaks, significantly increasing the demand for disposable gloves used for long-term care and emergency rescue. After changes in epidemic prevention and control policies, market demand has relatively weakened but shown long-term growth.It is expected that future supply and demand contradictions will ease with the release of production capacity, market prices will return to rationality, and sales revenue will remain optimistic in the long term.
Regarding the domestic market, as the impact of COVID-19 gradually subsides, the revenue and net profit margins of leading Chinese disposable medical glove companies led by Innovent Biomedical, Lanfan Medical, and Zhonghong Medical have been affected in the short term, and the supply and demand relationship in the medical glove market has gradually stabilized.
With the launch of innovative products, the improvement of residents' health and self-protection awareness, and the expansion of application scenarios, disposable gloves will embrace new growth opportunities. First, leading companies are building global R&D systems, collaborating with hospitals and other institutions to overcome new material and technology challenges, launching continuously iterating innovative products to tap into more market space, and creating a high-end, differentiated product system and matrix. Then, during the pandemic era, influenced by residents' enhanced health and self-protection awareness, market education, and other factors, the incremental demand is expected to settle into long-term increments over the next few years. At the same time, the rising demands for safety and cleanliness in food safety and high-precision manufacturing industries will also lead to widespread application of disposable gloves in these fields.
Looking globally, with the increasing demand for disposable medical gloves, global prices reached a peak in the first quarter of 2021. Among them, Malaysia is the main producer of disposable gloves globally and the largest exporter of rubber gloves. From 2022 to 2023, starting from December 1st, 2021, the United States imposed a 7.5% tariff on Chinese imports of medical gloves and a 28% tariff on non-medical gloves, leading to continuous growth in Malaysia's disposable glove sales. However, under the backdrop of fierce market competition in the later stages of the pandemic, Chinese manufacturers impacted the production and operation levels of Malaysian leading companies with their cost production and supply chain advantages. At the same time, Chinese manufacturers have significant advantages in technical level and product qualification certification, which is conducive to capturing more global market shares in the future.
From the perspective of global demand, the disposable glove market still has good growth potential. The outbreak of COVID-19 brought about a short-term surge in disposable glove demand. Then, during the pandemic era, the glove market experienced a short adjustment period.Global demand for disposable gloves declined compared to 2021 and 2020 in 2022, and is expected to resume positive growth around 2023. In addition, there is still significant room for development compared to overseas markets in the domestic glove market.Currently, the per capita glove consumption in China is far lower than the global average level. The annual per capita use of medical gloves in China is only 9 pairs, while the Netherlands, which has the highest per capita glove usage globally, can reach up to 317 pairs per person per year, about 35 times that of China, reflecting the inequality in global glove consumption.With strong economic development, population growth, and increasing awareness of the importance of hygiene, developing countries such as the Philippines, China, and Indonesia are expected to make increasingly greater contributions to the growing global glove consumption in the medium to short term.
Ms. Miao Qidi pointed out that China is in a stage of rapid growth in the disposable glove industry. Exporting to international markets is conducive to driving regional and full industrial chain development, aligning with the country's "Healthy China" top-level design, facilitating domestic and international dual circulation, and improving the global value chain position. On one hand, the prospects for the glove industry are still promising. After the adjustment of epidemic prevention and control policies in 2022, demand from overseas markets remained unchanged, and the export volume of nitrile gloves was several times that before the pandemic. Through policy encouragement, technological iteration, etc., the glove industry has become a regional supporting industry, driving the development of the entire industrial chain. On the other hand, there is a significant advantage in the export price of domestic nitrile gloves compared to Malaysia's glove prices. Leading companies have established raw material supply bases at home and abroad, connected the industrial chain to form stable raw material supply, and further strengthened their international competitive edge through a complete manufacturing system and rich and affordable product system, promoting the new development pattern of domestic and international dual circulation and playing a crucial role in the world competition pattern.
In the past three years, global health incidents have led to explosive growth in people's demand for disposable gloves. With rising raw material prices and lack of production capacity, the average selling price of disposable gloves soared. As global epidemic prevention enters normalization, the once tight supply of disposable gloves has gradually improved, starting a new situation where supply exceeds demand. After the average selling price of disposable gloves hit a record high, it has gradually returned to a rational range. Ms. Miao Qidi believes that due to capacity expansion and gradual stabilization of demand, the glove market faces a phase of supply exceeding demand, and currently some channel sales prices are close to pre-pandemic levels. The relative stability of raw material prices this year is also conducive to the control of production costs and the continuous stability of profit levels for global glove enterprises.
