NORTH AMERICAN MARKET FOR NONWOVEN FILTER MEDIA
EXPECTED TO REACH $725 MILLION BY 2007

The market for nonwoven filter media, including filtration materials manufactured by airlaid, wetlaid, spunbonded, meltblown or film extrusion processes, ranges over commercial applications in diverse sections of the economy. Such applications span conventional applications like water filtration, HVAC and food processing industry, and relatively new and mission critical applications like HEPA and ULPA filtration, clean room and biotechnology processing applications. Growth in this industry, however, is a complex issue. It depends on the ability of the North American economy to recover after a recent slowdown, continued threats of terrorism and their impact on markets, along with the ability of manufacturers to leverage their capital asset base, continued technological innovation, as well as environmental and regulatory pressure.

According to a soon-to-be-released updated report from Business Communications Company, Inc. (www.bccresearch.com)  RGB-271 Growing Markets for Nonwoven Filter Media, currently the North American market value of the five types of nonwoven filter media is nearly $563 million. The market is expected to grow at an AAGR (average annual growth rate) of 5.2% resulting in a $725 million market by 2007.

The textile technology based airlaid manufacturing process is probably the simplest nonwoven filter media manufacturing process. The market size for airlaid filter media is estimated to be $42 million in 2002. Though it is a relatively mature filter media production technology, it is expected to grow at an AAGR of 5.5% during the forecast period to $55 million. The top three leading applications for airlaid filter media include HVAC, manufacturing and transportation.

Liquid filtration applications consume the majority of the wetlaid filter media manufactured in the North America in 2002. The market size for wetlaid filter media is estimated to be $125 million in 2002. These markets will grow at an AAGR of 3.4% through the forecast period to reach $148 million by 2007. In several commercial applications extruded filter media such as spunbonded or meltblown materials are replacing wetlaid media. Therefore the anticipated growth of wetlaid media will be relatively lower than the overall nonwoven filter media markets.

In 2002, the sales of spunbonded filter media will be $183 million and account for over one third of overall nonwoven filter media markets. It is forecasted that the markets for spunbonded media will grow to $237 million by 2007. The growth of spunbonded filter media markets will mirror that of overall nonwoven filter media markets.

Meltblown filter media has the second highest market share of the overall nonwoven filter media markets. The market for meltblown filter media is estimated to be $154 million and projected to grow to $206 million by 2007. It represents an AAGR of nearly 6%. The majority of meltblown filter media is used in the HVAC applications followed by manufacturing and transportation industry segments.

The primary uses of apertured films in the nonwoven filter media markets are for membrane support and as a casting host. The market size for extruded apertured films in North America is expected to be $59 million in 2002. The primary consumers of the apertured films will include water filtration and healthcare application industries. The market size for apertured films is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 6% to $79 million during the forecast period.

North American Market Growth for Nonwoven Filter Media by Type,
through 2007
($ Millions)

Source: BCC, Inc.

North American Market Growth for Nonwoven Filter Media by Type,
through 2007
($ Millions)