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This report provides an overview of the major surfactants and their raw materials
that are used in household detergents. Laundry detergents, both powders and
liquids, and hand dishwashing liquids account for about 95% of the consumption
of surfactants in household detergents.
The Procter & Gamble Company is a major participant in North America,
Western Europe and Japan. In contrast, Japanese surfactant suppliers are major
participants only in Japan. Most of the other major companies participate in
both North America and Western Europe, but are not significant in Japan.
The biggest issue for detergent manufacturers in recent years has been managing
higher raw material costs, while minimizing any price increases to their customers
in a highly competitive consumer market. Other important considerations have
been to provide greater convenience to consumers in the use of detergent products
and to maintain minimum performance standards while reducing levels of surfactants
to minimize their own cost increases.
The following pie chart shows consumption of the major household detergent
surfactants in the United States, Western Europe and Japan:
Relatively small volumes of other surfactants not shown in the chart are also
used. In Western Europe, greater use of lower-foaming AE partly reflects that
region’s greater use of side-loading washing machines that produce more
foam. Western Europe is also the only significant consumer of SAS, in part
because SAS plants were first built in that region, but were never built in
North America. Because the use of the slower-to-biodegrade NPE is either banned
or greatly restricted in many areas of Western Europe and Japan, it is used
far less than in the United States. However, similar pressures have now emerged
in the United States, and the use of NPE in household detergents will be negligible
in 2007.
The household detergents market is very mature in these three areas, and rapid
growth is limited to some of the developing countries, especially in China
and India. Within the developed world, growth has been faster in North America
because of faster population growth and rapid growth in liquid laundry detergents
at the expense of powders. |
