Research and Investment Prospect Forecast of China's Tinplate Market, 2015-2020

8. Market Scale of Tinplate in China

8.1 Market Scale Analysis

8.1.1 Market Scale
At present, over 90% of tinplates are applied into foods, beverages or other package industries. As such, the metal packaging market can directly manifest market application of tinplate in China.

Metal packaging is an important part of China packaging industry, mainly providing packaging services for foods, cans, beverages, grease, chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic etc industries, its output value accounts for about 10% of total packaging industry output value in China. Metal packaging containers refer to the thin-walled packaging containers made of metal sheet and they are widely applied into the packages for foods, pharmaceuticals, daily necessities, instruments and meters, industrial products and munitions etc. in which, amount of food package is the largest. The food industry is the largest user of metal packaging, followed by chemical products, in addition, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals also account for certain proportion.

Metal packaging takes tinplate packaging as primary. With the constant improvement and perfection of tinplate printing and processing technologies, the application of tinplate packaging becomes increasingly wide. With the improvement of tinplate production capacity, the import of tinplate will be reduced gradually, tinplate can realize self-sufficient soon, but parts of high-grade products still need little of importation.

Going through 28 years of reform and open, metal packaging industry has formed the integrated metal package industry system including iron printing and can making, two-piece cans, steel barrels, bottle caps and aerosol cans and become one of important package industry categories. In China, there are over 1,000 metal packaging enterprises above the designated scale and 555 enterprises with certain scale and annual sales for over 5 million, forming the pattern of tripartite confrontation(state-owned enterprises, three-capital enterprises and private enterprises). In recent years, the private enterprises develop rapidly; some of them have grown into enterprise group above the designated scale, seeing from the whole industry, small and medium-sized enterprises account for over 90%, small and dispersed, small and complete pattern still has been resolved radically and industry intensification and integration are still arduous.

According to the statistics from Metal Containers Committee of China Packaging Federation, from 2003 to 2010, the average annual growth rate of sales revenue of metal packaging industry was 17.74%; in 2010, the sales revenue hit CNY 64.3 billion. In 2012, the annual output value of metal packaging industry hit CNY 79.2 billion, increasing by 23% over 2010. In which, the annual output value of beverage cans was CNY 24.6 billion, increasing by 33% over 2010; In 2013, the annual output value of metal packaging industry hit CNY 128 billion; in 2014, this number hit CNY 142 billion. In future, the market development space for metal package products is huge.

With the increase of population and improvement of living standard in China, the demand for tinplate is being enlarged, including the high-grade tinplates used as food cans and beverage cans. In 2011, the consumption amount of tinplate was about CNY 23.3 billion, and this number in 2012-2014 was CNY 25 billion, CNY 30 billion and CNY 34.8 billion respectively.

8.1.2 Production Capacity and Distribution of Key Tinplate Manufacturers

1). Production Capacity of Key Tinplate Manufacturers

Tab.40: Production Capacity of Key Tinplate Manufacturers in China

Enterprise Production capacity (10,000t) Newly-added production capacity (10,000t) Production time of newly-added production capacity
Baosteel 120 —— ——
Wuhan Iron and Steel 20 20 2013
WISCO-NIPPON Steel Tinplate —— 40 2013
ZhongShan ZhongYue Tinplate Industrial Co., Ltd. 25 —— ——
ZHONGYUE POSCO?Qinhuangdao?Tinplate Industrial Co.,Ltd. 20 —— ——
Guangzhou Pacific Tinplate Co., Ltd. 40
Hainan Haiyu Tinplate Industry Co., Ltd. 40
JiangSu Ton Yi Tinplate 42
Tianjin Jiyu Steel Co., Ltd 30
Fujian Sino-Japan Metal Corporation 15
Wuxi Zhongcai Group 16
Wuxi New Dazhong Sheet Co., Ltd. 30
Wuxi Yangguang Tinplate 15
New Source Holding 15 15 2014
Shandong Fengyang Steel Plate 12
Hengshui Thin Steel Plate Co., Ltd 25
Tianjin Tiantie 10
Changzhou Jinhua Thin Steel Plate Co., Ltd 10
Zhangjiagang Gangxin 10
Fuqiang Group 10
Jiangyin Kemao 10
Qianan SWKD Sheet S&T Co., Ltd —— 15 2013
Hainan Haixie Tinplate Co., Ltd. —— 20 2013
Total 540 110
Source: China Packaging Federation, Huidian Research

Known from the existing production capacity and the projects under construction of above key tinplate manufacturers, the total production capacity of tinplate including the existing capacity and the one under construction was over 6.5 million t.

2). Distribution of Key Tinplate Manufacturers

Fig.41: Distribution of Key Tinplate Manufacturers in China

Source: China Packaging Federation, Huidian Research

The above fig. 41 suggests: the key tinplate manufacturers are mainly distributed in East China, accounting for over 54%, followed by Central China and North China.

In June 10, 2014, the thermal-load commissioning of No.2 continuous annealing unit in cold-rolling tinplate production line of Wuhan Iron and Steel succeeded, which signified the cold-rolling tinplate continuous annealing production line of Wuhan Iron and Steel undertaken by China 19th Metallurgical Corporation was completed comprehensively.

The continuous annealing unit project in cold-rolling tinplate production line of Wuhan Iron and Steel was started on September 18, 2012, China 19th Metallurgical Corporation undertaken the construction of two continuous annealing units: one is tinplating preparation unit, the other one is semi-autonomic packaging unit. The total length of No.1 and No.2 continuous annealing unit are both 350m with the highest height hitting 29.6m, they are designed by Japan, adopt in-furnace gas combustion heat radiation tube, nitrogen and hydrogen mixture protection, steel strip recrystallization annealing treatment and the waste gases are exhausted by smoke exhausting fan etc advanced technologies. The highest speed at inlet and outlet during unit operation can be as high as 1,070m/min, the highest speed of furnace can hit 880m/min. this project adopts the-state-of-the-art and the most mature technology and equipment with the characteristics of high-speed, thin steel strip and high product positioning to produce tinplate used as food and beverage cans, with excellent anti-corrosion performance, which is also the most important core project of Wuhan Steel and Iron targeting to high-end market during the 12th five-year plan period. The capacity of tinplate in China also expands fast, and the newly-built projects mainly concentrate into North China.

The capacity of tinplate that was started to construct since 2011 was 2.1 million t, in which, 1.3 million t of capacity under construction is in North China. Meanwhile, 650 thousand of tinplate capacity was put into production in 2014.

8.1.3 Market Consumption of Tinplate
Tinplate is mainly used as food cans, packaging materials and beverage cans etc. at present, three concentrated metal packaging industry belts has been formed, including large Pearl River Delta (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Hong Kong), Yangtze River Delta (Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai) and Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan-Bohai Delta, as well as Fujian, Shandong Sichuan etc three hot point areas have been formed.

During the 11th five-year plan period, the most developed areas of metal packaging industry still were Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and Bohai-Rim Economic Circle. The development trend of newly-emerging hot point areas is also gratifying, such as: the metal packaging base relying on alcoholic drinks and beverages in Chengdu (Capital of Sichuan province) and its surrounding areas, and the metal packaging base relying on tomato paste and other agricultural by-products in Xinjiang etc, in the past few years, they grew rapidly.

In respect of enterprise, with the increasingly high industry concentration ratio in recent years, a batch of new listed enterprises and leading enterprises emerge in metal packaging industry and lead industry team to continue growing and keep rapidly developing.

With the increase of population and improvement of living standard in China, the demand for tinplate is being enlarged, including the high-grade tinplates used as food cans and beverage cans. In 2014, the consumption volume of tinplate was about 4.05 million t.

Fig.42: Consumption of Tinplate, 2011-2014 (10,000 t)


Source: China Packaging Federation, Huidian Research

8.2 Market Scale Forecast, 2015-2020
The per-capita consumption of metal packaging in China is low and development space is huge. In 2011, the per-capita consumption of metal packaging in China was only USD 5, while this number in world was USD 13.6, the per-capita consumption of metal packaging in China is low; in 2011, the output value of metal packaging in global was USD 102 billion, accounting for 17% of total output value of international package, while, at present, the output value of metal packaging in China only accounts for 9.4% of total output value of package industry, the metal package still has large development space in packaging industry chain.

In 2014, the consumption volume of tinplate in China was about 3.8 million t, in recent years, the annual growth rate of tinplate consumption was about 8%, it is expected that the consumption volume of tinplate will be close to 6 million t.

Fig.43: Forecast on Annual Consumption of Tinplate in China, 2015-2020

Source: China Packaging Federation, Huidian Research