2020 A Good Year for Nonwovens, Mainly

It is not an overstatement to say that the year 2020 was one of the strongest ever for nonwovens. As the world ground to a halt and many industries faced global shutdowns, the nonwovens industry went into overdrive, meeting unprecedented demand for products like face masks, personal protective apparel and disinfectant wipes. This was achieved by pivoting production, repurposing capacity and even adding new lines.

In fact, the number of new lines being added by nonwovens producers currently is among the highest the industry has seen in its 50-plus year history. While meltblown investment is leading the way—with new lines meeting demand for face mask and high performance filtration media—there are many new spunmelt lines, serving hygiene and medical applications, as well as spunlace investments to meet surging demand in the disinfectant wipes category.

Now as we wait for these new lines to reach commercialization, the question will be how long demand will continue to surge. When masks are no longer a part of daily lives and consumers become less reliant on wipes, will all these new lines be needed?

Most experts say yes. Demand will continue to grow from an elevated base as consumers continue to rely on the safety features and convenience that nonwovens can offer.

By the Numbers

This year’s top companies report includes 40 nonwovens producers located around the world. While many of the leading companies are based in established markets like the U.S. and Western Europe, companies from less developed areas are increasing their role. This year, there are companies based in many developing countries like Brazil, Turkey, China, Taiwan and the Czech Republic. As companies in these emerging markets continue to grow, surely we will see their ranking positions climb in future years.

This year we did say goodbye to one company that has been in the ranking for decades—Low & Bonar. The company was acquired by Freudenberg in early 2019. Additionally, this will be the last year for two other nonwovens leaders. Georgia-Pacific, one of the industry’s earliest innovators, sold the remaining parts of its nonwovens business to Glatfelter Corporation in early 2021, Glatfelter is also in the process of buying another nonwovens leader, Jacob Holm Industries.

As is always the case, each company in this survey is ranked on the basis of their 2020 sales, which were translated from local currencies into U.S. dollars using the yearly average. Many economic factors like exchange rates and raw material pricing can skew the ranking so, while ranking companies by sales is necessary to the nature of this report, it is really the activities of these companies—as reported in their profiles—that should be considered. All sales figures were provided by the companies except in some cases, such as Kimberly-Clark, Saudi German Nonwovens, and Johns Manville, which were estimated.

Karen McIntyre, Editor
kmcintyre@rodmanmedia.com