PPE Industry- The New Engine of Growth!

PPE Industry-Textile Sphere

PPE became a buzzword among common people in recent times with the advent of Pandemic across the globe. The product has got a huge familiarity among all users and non-users in no time. PPE has made access now in everyone’s mind. Personal Protective Equipment is protective gear designed to safeguard the health of workers by minimizing exposure to a biological agent and any physical injury from external objects and any other source. PPE encompasses a wide range of products like goggles, face-shield, masks (Surgical/N-95), gloves (surgical/examination), coverall/gowns (with or without aprons), headcover and shoe cover, etc. Broadly PPE is categorized into three categories viz. Industrial, Healthcare and Consumer, etc. Industrial PPE is mainly used by the workforces engaged in various manufacturing sectors including Construction & Mining sector to protect them from external injury. Healthcare PPE is mainly used by Healthcare professionals to take safeguard measures from exposure to a pandemic and infection from any source. Consumer PPE is mainly used by an individual to protect oneself from any infection and exposure to a polluted environment. These three categories are also of wide featured products. Industrial PPE has a wide variety of products in terms of materials, design, and structure to suit the requirements of diverse uses. Consumer PPE is of an individual choice and is mostly used by the consumers at different locations to protect themselves from any human touch and exposure to any infection. This is usually very light and made from non-woven materials. This is mostly one-time use and disposable in nature. With the advent of Pandemic, the demand for such products has got a big spike and it is expected to continue as severe fear gripped healthcare professionals in recent times as they have work like warriors in such disastrous times. 

PPE Industry & Future Demand Across the Globe:

PPE industry was in an incipient stage in India till recent times but it has grown up in multifold with the insistence of union Govt. to meet the domestic demand during the pandemic. Bengaluru, Karnataka has become a major hub for PPE overall production in the country accounting for nearly 50 percent of production. Besides Bengaluru, PPE overalls are also being manufactured by approved production units in Tiruppur, Chennai, and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Ahmedabad and Vadodara in Gujarat, Phagwara, and Ludhiana in Punjab, Kusumnagar and Bhiwandi in Maharashtra, Dungarpur in Rajasthan, Kolkata, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and few other places. There around are around 600 units now engaged in manufacturing PPE overalls. Rajkot became the hot spot of Mask manufacturing during the Pandemic. It is stated that India became the second-largest manufacturer of PPE overalls in 60 days during the Pandemic in 2020. Currently, India has the capacity & capability of 4,50lakh pieces of PPE kits per day. It reveals from a recent study that there is a huge potential of PPE Overalls, Aprons, and masks, etc. in the domestic market that are commonly used in various industries like Construction, Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, and Food processing industries, Mining including health care sector. Besides this, demand for consumer PPE & Aprons is also growing with buildup awareness during pandemic.

TYPE OF PPE

It is reported that the Global demand for PPE was US$ 40.0bn in 2016 and is expected to reach US$58.34bn and US $63bn in 2022 and 2025 respectively. But the pandemic made a dramatic change in the roadmap of the industry that had surpassed the estimation & projection of future demand made earlier. There is a huge spark in growth & demand and it is estimated that it was US$77.36bn in 2020 and it is expected to reach US$120bn in 2027 with a growth rate of 7.3%. As per the latest report of WTO of 2020, developed countries are still ruling the global market and India is yet to make a visible presence in the global market through India made a big initiative to build a huge manufacturing capacity of manufacturing PPE Overalls & kits. It is reported that Personal protective products (PPP) that include consumables have a share 0f 13% of medical products in the global market. It is reported that the PPE market was only $1.71bn in the USA in 2019 and that got escalated to $5.96bn in 2020. China is the major contributor to PPE in 2019. It is reported that China has a share of 25% mask in Global market and US & Germany including contributed nearly half of the global demand of masks. It is reported that Bangladesh and Vietnam are also aggressively working to make a dent in the global market.

The global market share of few countries is given below:            

                                                     Table- 1

Market size of PPE Industry

PPE is used in various sectors to protect human beings and features of PPEs are also widely varied to suit the requirements. No doubt, the demand for PPE got escalated hugely during the pandemic across the globe. Industrial PPE is used in chemical-based industries & Petrochem industries for many years to safeguard the workforces from exposure to harmful materials that may cause injury to health. But consumption patterns got dramatically changed during the pandemic and the health care sector came in limelight. The recent study of a reputed agency depicts the market share by various sectors during the pandemic in the diagram that’s reproduced below:

GLOBAL ppe market share


 Opportunities Ahead:

The global market had witnessed a sudden jump in the demand curve of the products during the pandemic and it is expected to grow further significantly in the next decade. India has also witnessed a big spurt in the growth of demand to meet the domestic needs in recent times thus there is a sudden boost in growth of this sector during the pandemic, through manufacturing activity was in the incipient stage before the pandemic. It reveals that a few corporate made serious initiatives to export masks to different countries. MSME sector in Rajkot already made their presence quite visible in manufacturing masks. India has already initiated the export of PPEs to few countries. As global demand indicates a big surge in the next decade so there will be a huge opportunity for India to make an inroad in the global market provided quality norms of materials, fabric structure, and surface finish, etc. that meet the desired requirements. PPE is of a wide variety for diverse uses, so the selection of materials & physical parameters including surface characteristics are truly important as that meet the demand. It is expected there will be a huge spark in demand for Consumer and industrial PPE in domestic markets as the pandemic wave built awareness among common people to take safeguard measures from infection & exposure to any biomaterials. India has the capacity & capability to meet the demand of Consumer PPE and other consumables that are simple & lightweight in nature. The manufacturing activities in the country virtually came to a halt during the pandemic but this sector worked on war footing round the clock that boosts the industrial activity and pushes it to the growth trajectory. That truly establishes the fact that this sector works as a new engine to push the growth of industrial activity in the coming years.

References:

1.Personal Protective Equipment Market size report 2020-28, Aug.2021

2.Global Personal Protective Equipment report 2020-25, forecast with Impact Analysis of Covid-19,Research Market.com, Aug 24, 2021

3. PPE in India. May,2020

4.PPE Market Research, Global Analysis on Market size & share2020-30

5. WTO Report, 2020.

6.WTO Report on Trend in Medical Goods in context to tackling Covid-19


Author’s profile:-

CHANDAN SAHA.

FIE.

Industry & Management Expert.

BSc. Tech(Textile) Calcutta University, M. Text (Engg.) M.S. University, Vadodara. System Management (JBIMS Bombay).  Chartered Engineer,  Qualified ISO Lead Assessor.

Fellow of Institution of Engineers India. Recipient of prestigious Er. Sadanand Memorial Award

Served more than four decades in Industry, Research Institutes and Ministry of MSME and NITI AYOG Govt. of India etc. A retired Senior official of Govt. of India, engaged in Industry planning & promotion, establishing Linkage among Industry & Academic and Professional institutions etc. Attached with various professional and academic institutions at various capacities for 35years.Made a significant contribution in industry promotion, product innovation, Skill development and adoption & practice on modern management tools in MSMEs etc.

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