Raw Material Trends for Hot Melt Adhesives in Europe, 2000 Hot Melt Symposium Proceedings

Robert W. Smith, William E. Broxterman--The global adhesives industry is highly complex because of it’s fragmentation, and the European region is no different than the rest of the world. In some respects, the European market is more complex than that of the United States due to the distinct differences between various countries or regions in Europe. This regional fragmentation makes the European adhesives market more difficult to study and understand. Many participants and suppliers are active in only one or a small number of individual countries. Few supply to the entire European market.

Because of this regional fragmentation, Europe can not be studied as a single entity. Instead, each country or region must be considered separately. Then, only by adding all the data from each region can the overall industry and it’s strategic trends come into focus.

The ChemQuest Group has approached the European market in a similar fashion to it’s analysis of the U.S. market for adhesives, examining End Use Markets, Formulative Technologies, and Raw Materials Categories. As stated earlier, the added dimension of individual countries or regions in Europe must also be considered. Table 1 shows the countries or regions into which we have divided the European marketplace.