Most of the organic pigment industry adopts a business model that combines standardized and customized products. Standardized products are standardized products and after-sales services provided directly by manufacturers to customers. Customized products are a relatively special business model in the organic pigment industry. Organic pigments are mainly used in the fields of inks, coatings, and plastics. The diversity of application scenarios for downstream customer products has led to diverse performance requirements for organic pigments. A single organic pigment manufacturer has limited product categories and cannot cover the diverse needs of downstream customers. There are companies that can integrate upstream supply chain resources and control the quality of supply chain products with relatively leading organic pigment product development, process improvement and testing capabilities. Provide relatively complete and professional organic pigment products and services. The customized product model is more in line with the requirements of international division of labor and is also more adaptable to the development trend of specialized division of labor in the global industrial chain.
2. Industry characteristics
(1) Periodicity
The organic pigment industry is largely affected by downstream industries such as inks, coatings and plastics, and its development cycle is closely related to the fluctuations of these industries. The ink industry is closely related to the lives of ordinary consumers and business operations. The demand for ordinary consumer goods in people’s lives (such as packaging and printing inks for food, newspapers, medicines, etc.) is sustainable and stable, and is weakly affected by the economic cycle, while enterprises Operations have a certain correlation with the economic cycle.
Products in the coatings industry and plastics industry have a wide range of applications. Some products are used in construction, commercial vehicles, engineering machinery, chemical industry and other fields. They are highly related to the macro-economy and have obvious cyclical characteristics; other products are used in For mass consumer goods such as home appliances, passenger cars, and packaging, they are related to consumers’ consumption characteristics and income changes, and there are also certain cyclical characteristics.
To sum up, there is a certain degree of cyclicality in the organic pigment industry, but the expansion of its downstream industry application fields has effectively smoothed the cyclical fluctuations in demand.
(2) Regional and seasonal
Organic pigments belong to the fine chemical industry, which requires a wide variety of raw materials and intermediates for production, and requires high production supporting facilities such as energy and environmental protection facilities. In order to facilitate transportation and improve industrial agglomeration, my country’s organic pigment production companies are gradually gathering in industrial parks with complete production supporting facilities. Currently, several industrial parks have been formed in the Yangtze River Delta and other places, mainly including Xiaoshan, Changzhou, Shangyu, Longkou, etc. Gradually form a trend of intensive industrial development.
Generally speaking, due to the Spring Festival and Christmas holidays, some downstream customers of organic pigments have reduced production and operations during the above-mentioned periods, so the production and sales of the organic pigment industry have also decreased accordingly. Except for the above-mentioned periods, the organic pigment industry has no other obvious seasonal characteristics.
3. Change trends and reasons for changes in industry profit levels
At present, there are many suppliers in the organic pigment industry in my country, and the market competition is fierce. The technical level, business scale, and profitability of each enterprise vary greatly. Generally, small and medium-sized enterprises have low overall competitiveness and low profit levels due to their small scale and low-grade products. A few organic pigment companies with strong R&D capabilities and advanced technical equipment can provide high-quality, differentiated, and branded products through technological innovation to ensure a higher level of profitability.
There are many varieties and specifications of organic pigments in my country, the market is relatively fragmented, and the profit levels of products in different market segments vary greatly. There are many suppliers of traditional organic pigments, homogeneous and disorderly competition is fierce, and profit levels are low. High-performance organic pigments have better performance, higher entry barriers for technology and talent, and higher product added value and profit levels.
At the same time, with the increasing requirements of environmental protection policies, industrial upgrading and industrial concentration have become future development trends. The competitiveness of leading companies in the industry continues to improve, and industry profits are gradually concentrated in companies with core competitiveness.
4. Industry technical level and technical characteristics
Tracing back to the development history of organic pigments in the world, it has a history of more than 100 years. Its technological development can be roughly divided into three stages. The details are as follows:
The first stage: the 1920s and 1930s. The rise and development of the color printing industry has promoted the development and production of a large number of classic organic pigments, including monoazo yellow, disazo yellow, color phenol, lake red and phthalocyanine blue series pigments, which to a certain extent meet the needs of color printing The printing industry’s color and performance needs.
The second stage: the 1950s and 1960s. The recovery and development of the world economy, the refinement of the petrochemical industry, and the rise of the automobile industry in European and American countries have promoted the birth and development of some high-performance organic pigments, including quinacridone, high-performance azo, quinphthalone series, and perylene High-performance organic pigments such as series, isoindoline and isoindolinone have been successfully developed and industrialized, meeting the coloring needs of automotive coatings, industrial coatings and plastics.
The third stage: From the 1980s to the present, new varieties have rarely appeared in the pigment industry, and the progress of pigment products mainly relies on the progress of science and technology. Advanced modern analytical instruments and increasingly mature analytical testing methods are widely used in the field of pigments. Characterization technology of compound molecular structure, observation technology of microscopic particle morphology, research results of crystallography and supramolecular chemistry, etc., have profoundly influenced and promoted the rapid development of basic research and industrialization of pigments, making pigments more high-quality. , develop in the direction of specialization and environmental protection.
The current technological progress in the pigment industry is mainly reflected in three aspects:
First, pigment technology is further developed and improved. The rapid development of crystal structure induction control technology, solid solution preparation technology, derivative surface treatment technology, polymer surfactant processing technology, pigment synthesis technology and separation technology has enriched the varieties and specifications of pigments and greatly improved the quality of pigments. .
Second, it has become an industry consensus to develop safe and environmentally friendly pigments that meet the requirements of high-quality life. Countries such as Europe and the United States have formulated relevant laws and regulations to strictly limit the content of heavy metals, aromatic amines, and surfactants in pigments that come into close contact with the human body. Safety and environmentally friendly pigments have become a key development direction. As countries around the world continue to strengthen legislation and supervision on environmental protection and product safety, environmentally friendly pigments will become a future development trend.
Third, the product development of traditional pigments continues to develop rapidly, product quality and performance have been comprehensively improved, and more excellent special pigments have been introduced to the market.
5. Opportunities facing the industry
(1) The world’s organic pigment industry continues to shift
Due to strict environmental protection requirements and high investment and operating costs, organic pigment manufacturing companies in developed countries in Europe and the United States continue to transfer production capacity to Asia, establishing joint ventures in China, India and other countries, or engaging in various forms of cooperation with local manufacturing companies . At the same time, as competition in the international organic pigment market, especially the traditional azo pigment market, intensifies, the transfer of the world’s organic pigment industry will continue in the future. Against this background, my country’s organic pigment manufacturing companies are facing huge development opportunities:
On the one hand, my country is the world’s largest production base and consumer market for fine chemical products, and the transfer of international manufacturing capabilities will help my country continue to strengthen its position as the largest producer of organic pigments.
On the other hand, outstanding domestic enterprises can quickly improve their technical level and management capabilities through joint ventures and cooperation with global organic pigment manufacturers, and are expected to take advantage of localization advantages to occupy a dominant position in joint ventures and cooperation, which is conducive to further implementation of internationalization. strategy and continuously improve core competitiveness.
(2) National industrial policy support
Organic pigments are widely used in various fields such as inks, coatings and plastics, and are closely related to people’s lives. In recent years, with the rapid development of my country’s ink, coating and plastics industries, the status of the organic pigment industry in the national economy has continued to increase.
The “Guidance Catalog for Industrial Structural Adjustment (2019 Version)” promulgated by the National Development and Reform Commission (revised in 2019) lists “organic pigments with high color fastness, functionality, low aromatic amines, no heavy metals, easy dispersion, and pure pulp coloring” “, “Development and application of new technologies for clean production and intrinsic safety of dyes, organic pigments and their intermediates” are included in encouraged investment projects, pointing out the direction of industrial structure adjustment and optimization and upgrading for the domestic organic pigment industry. According to the “Administrative Measures for the Identification of High-tech Enterprises” and the “High-tech Fields Supported by the State” issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, and the State Administration of Taxation, “new safe and environmentally friendly pigments and dyes” are included in the high-tech fields supported by the state. After the promulgation of this policy, new safe and environmentally friendly pigments and dyes have received policy support, which is conducive to promoting the development of pigment production and product categories in a safe and environmentally friendly direction.
(3) Growth trend of environmentally friendly organic pigments
The increasingly stringent standards for the use of colorants by governments around the world will further restrict the use of dyes and pigments with toxic and harmful substances, thereby providing broader space for the development of organic pigments. As early as 1994, the second batch of consumer product regulations issued by the German government clarified that 20 kinds of pigments synthesized from banned aromatic amines were banned pigments; on September 11, 2002, the European Commission issued Directive No. 61 of 2002, Banning the use of azo pigments that can decompose under reducing conditions to produce 22 carcinogenic aromatic amines; on January 6, 2003, the European Commission further stipulated that the use and sale of chromium-containing azo pigments in the EU textile, clothing and leather products market . The REACH regulations, which were officially implemented in 2007, replaced more than 40 previous EU directives and regulations on chemicals. One of the focuses of its supervision is dyes, organic pigments, auxiliaries, intermediates and their downstream products, such as toys, Textiles etc.
Relevant departments in our country have also successively promulgated regulations and industry standards to restrict the use of products containing toxic and harmful substances. On January 1, 2002, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine promulgated and implemented the “Limits of Hazardous Substances in Interior Decoration Materials”; in 2010, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the National Standardization Administration Committee promulgated and implemented the “Limits of Hazardous Substances in Coatings for Toys” ; On June 1, 2010, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine promulgated and implemented the “Limits of Hazardous Substances in Automobile Coatings”; in October 2016, the National Health and Family Planning Commission issued the GB9685-2016 “National Food Safety Standard for Food Contact Materials and Products” “Usage Standards for Additives” etc. These regulations or industry standards clearly limit the content of harmful substances such as lead and hexavalent chromium. Although my country’s restrictions on the use of chromium-containing pigments are still looser than those in developed countries, with the development of the economy, my country’s relevant standards are bound to be further revised and converge with developed countries. Therefore, the market for environmentally friendly organic pigments will become increasingly widespread.
6. Industry competition landscape
There are currently hundreds of organic pigment manufacturers in the world. Since Japan’s DIC Co., Ltd. acquired BASF Pigments and Europe’s Heubach acquired Clariant Pigments, the world’s organic pigments landscape has begun to change. The top two companies have used their strong technology to , financial strength, occupy a large share of the world pigment market, and control most of the high-end market. Global organic pigment suppliers can be roughly divided into three categories according to their sales scale: first, traditional international suppliers DIC Co., Ltd. and Heubach. DIC Co., Ltd. and Heubach have annual sales of more than 5 billion yuan; second, more than a dozen Medium-sized enterprises, including DCL Corporation in the Americas, Toyo in Japan, SUDARSHAN and Vibrantz Technologies Inc. in India, as well as Lily, Qicai Chemical, Shuangle Co., Ltd., United Chemical, Xinkai Technology, Changzhou North America and Xianike in China, etc., medium-sized enterprises The company’s annual sales are more than 500 million yuan; third, hundreds of small companies, mainly concentrated in Asia, have annual sales of less than 500 million yuan.
7. Risks faced by the industry
(1) The degree of industry intensification is not high and disorderly competition is serious
The overall degree of intensification of the domestic organic pigment industry is still not high. Most of the hundreds of organic pigment manufacturers across the country are small and medium-sized enterprises. Their products are mainly medium and low-end pigments with low added value, resulting in increasingly fierce market competition and serious disorderly competition. It disrupts the order of the entire industry and reduces the profitability of the entire industry, thereby affecting the overall competitiveness of domestic enterprises in the international market.
(2) Environmental protection pressure
The current environmental protection situation in our country is very severe. The national energy conservation, emission reduction and environmental protection requirements are constantly increasing. The newly revised “Environmental Protection Law” has put forward stricter regulatory requirements for enterprises. Organic pigment production companies need to invest in the construction or renovation of three waste treatment facilities and pay for the follow-up treatment of the three wastes, which leads to a large increase in production costs, puts greater financial pressure on the company and compresses existing profit margins. The low-carbonization of chemical products and their supply chains has become an inevitable trend in the development of manufacturing industries around the world. The future development of the organic pigment industry will face the challenge of changing development methods.