According to a new market report published by Lucintel, the future of global prepreg market looks promising with opportunities in commercial aerospace, general aviation, military/defense, space/satellite, sporting goods, marine, wind energy, automotive, and civil engineering industries. The global prepreg market is expected to reach an estimated $6.6 billion by 2021 and it is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 7.7% from 2016 to 2021. The major drivers for market growth are growing demand for advanced high performance and lightweight composite materials and increasing performance requirements in the end use industries.
In this market, commercial aerospace, general aviation, military/defense, space/satellite, sporting goods, marine, wind energy, automotive, and civil engineering are the major end use industries. On the basis of comprehensive research, Lucintel forecasts that the commercial aerospace, general aviation and automotive segments are expected to show above average growth during the forecast period.
Within the global prepreg market, the commercial aerospace segment is expected to remain the largest segment by value and wind energy by volume. Expected growth in the development and production of advanced aircraft models, increasing use of lightweight high-performance composites in new aircraft programs, such as Boeing 787, Airbus A350, and the increasing length of wind turbine blades are the major driving forces that spur growth for these segments over the forecast period.
By type of prepreg, thermoset prepreg is expected to remain the largest segment due to its demand for large volume applications like wind turbine blades.
By fiber type, carbon fiber reinforced prepreg is expected to remain the largest segment by value and glass fiber reinforced prepreg by volume over the forecast period. By resin type, epoxy based prepreg is expected to remain the largest segment by both value and volume. The growing use of high performance composite materials in the end use industries is likely to drive the consumption of epoxy based prepreg over the forecast period. By material form, fabric prepreg is expected to remain the largest segment over the forecast period, whereas by manufacturing technology, hot melt is expected to remain the largest segment over the forecast period.
The North America is expected to remain the largest market and is expected to witness highest growth rate during the forecast period due to growing demand from aerospace and other end use industries.