Personal Protective Equipment Market - Forecast(2023 - 2028)

The global Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Market is forecast to reach around $70 billion by 2025, after growing at a CAGR of 6% during 2020-2025. Increasing the working population globally, strict government regulations, and strict labor laws are driving the growth of the global PPE market over the forecast period.  Additionally, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, the global personal protective equipment industry is expected to witness an exponential growth for the year 2020-2021, due to growing high demand for a mask, gloves, protective clothing, and goggles from healthcare/medical sector to prevent the expansion of coronavirus and treat safely the infected one. In addition, the growing incidents of manual accidents in the workplace, rising demand for respiratory equipment for mining, emergency relief, military, law-enforcement facilities, health care, and fire services are expected to drive Personal Protective Equipment market share growth in the coming years.

 

Among equipment types, the hand and arm protection type segment hold the larger share of more than 22% in 2019 due to the growing uses of gloves in the manufacturing, healthcare, and construction industries. In the manufacturing sector due to the presence of various risky operations like grading, excavating, trenching, digging, boring, drilling, and blasting and concreting drives the demand for hand and arm protection equipment. Whereas, in the construction sector, the risk is associated during welding, cutting, nailing, and others. Furthermore, in the healthcare/medical sector hand and arm protection plays an important role to perform surgery or to treat the infected people. Additionally, the outbreak of COVID-19 disease worldwide drives the demand for gloves, which in turn propels the growth of this segment during the forecast period. For instance, in March 2020, the Rubber glove manufacturers in Malaysia witnessing the surge in order for rubber gloves from North America and Europe due to growth of COVID-19 disease across the region. Besides, the US has lifted the ban on disposable rubber gloves made by WRP Asia Pacific. In the UK, in March 2020, the NHS has bought around 88.5 million gloves from Malaysia for the use of NHS staff during the coronavirus outbreak. This growing uses of gloves is also contributing to the growth of Personal Protective Equipment market size during the forecast period. As the demand for gloves is growing, then on the other side, the manufacturers are facing the product shortage due to the availability of raw material, workforce, production capacity, and restraint in the supply chain.

Among the end-user types, the industrial segment was the largest segment in 2019 contributing more than 25% share in the global PPE market. Manufacturing & construction, oil and gas, mining, and chemical industry involves various vigorous activities associated with the hazardous and non-hazardous products that are often prone to accidents, risks, and maybe hazard to the lives of the workers. Therefore, it is necessary, for each worker to wear adequate and suitable protective equipment that protects against possible hazards at the workplace. Wearing a reflected vest is necessary for workers to maintain visibility while conducting site inspections and other site activities. Furthermore, the growing oil and gas production activities in the Middle East, Russia, and the US, increasing healthcare/medical sector investments, and growth in the manufacturing of PPE equipment due to growth in COVID-19 pandemic drives the demand for PPE equipment during the forecast period. However, the other industrial verticals such as the manufacturing & construction, mining, food and beverage, metals and marine, and aviation industries are being significantly affected due to the COVID-19 epidemic, as most of the countries have issued “stay at home guidance” i.e., lockdown. This factor is limiting personal protective equipment market growth during the forecast period.

Among the regions, North America dominated the PPE Market share with more than 30%, followed by Europe and APAC. The growth of end-use industries such as construction, oil & gas, healthcare, manufacturing, and marine has led to ample growth opportunities in the North America Personal Protective Equipment market. According to the Government of Canada, the country’s construction industry employs 1.2 million men and women. Moreover, the industry breached $14.8 million as of April 2019, according to the latest findings by the government. Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC) stated that, the Canadian provinces with the most accidents in the construction industry, in 2017, with 951 workplace fatalities recorded in Canada, an increase of 46% from the previous year. Hence to avoid such accidents more care is to be taken by the employers by providing the employees with necessary protective equipment.

PPE in the health care sector includes face protection, goggles, mask or face shield, gloves, protective clothing, head cover, and rubber boots. Whereas, the watchword of the health care providers around the world is to “protecting ourselves so that we can continue to help others” to protect against possible external infectious pathogens or substances. This includes being aware and up to date with infection prevention and control measures and the proper implementation of personal protective equipment (PPE). 

The growing health concern, increasing surgeries, and the growth of viral diseases like COVID-19 and Ebola in the developed and developing regions drive the demand for protective equipment as it helps in minimizing the risk of exposure to the virus. For instance, the outbreak of the Ebola virus during 2014-2016 has left its mark to date that leads to driving the demand for PPE from the healthcare/medical sector over the forecast period. For instance, in 2018, the outbreak of Ebola in the Central Africa drives the demand for Personal protective equipment made of PVC and PVC-based medical devices. Whereas, the growing cosmetics and plastic surgeries among the youngsters is also contributing to the growth of Personal Protective Equipment scope for the health workers. For instance, in 2018, According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), in the US, almost 18 million people underwent surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures. Furthermore, the demand for PPE is also growing an exponential rate from November 2019 to the first quarter of 2020 (January-March) and it’s growing continuously mostly from health workers/ health care providers due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. For instance, In March 2020, The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated by studying the COVID-19 situation worldwide that PPE industry must increase its manufacturing capacity by 40 percent to meet the rising global PPE demand. Furthermore, WHO also estimated the requirements of goggles stand at 1.6 million per month and that of gloves goes up to 76 million globally. 

Employee’s safety at the workplace has progressively gained widespread attention and concern across various industries including electrical and electronics, chemical, oil & gas, mining, healthcare, and petrochemical industries. Hence, new technologies, changing workforce demographics, and the need for stringent safety regulations are driving the demand for personal protective equipment across these industries. Furthermore, the risk associated with the workers are electric arc mostly for an electrician, infection from the virus for healthcare workers in hospitals, flash fire related to pharmaceutical, chemical, and refinery workers, and combustible dust pertaining to workers in food processing plants, paper, and pulp industry, etc. To overcome these risks, industries are following various standards such as NFPA® 2112, NFPA® 70E, ASTM® F1506-10A, and ASTM® F1959/F1959M. These are majorly used in pharmaceutical, power, and oil & gas industries owing to high accident risk. Additionally, the growth of this market is also driven due to the new revisions in the NFPA 70E Standard (Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace). The NFPA 70E standard now states “employees shall wear PPE wherever there is possible exposure to an electric arc flash.”

Furthermore, the guidelines provided by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under Act of 1970 (OSH Act) regarding workplace safety have forced the manufacturing companies/industries to adopt the protective equipment for the workers. Besides, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 disease, OSHA has provided certain guidelines associated with the use of PPE into four categories such as Lower Risk (Caution), Medium Risk, High Risk, and Very High Risk in order to control the spread of coronavirus. Additionally, due to the growing cause of COVID-19 globally, various countries have put certain guidelines for the use of PPE for manufacturers and healthcare workers. For instance, in the US, the CDC and FDA have issued the guidelines regarding the compulsory use of PPE equipment in the hospital premises, whereas, in the UK, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Public Health Wales (PHW), Public Health Agency (PHA) Northern Ireland, Health Protection Scotland (HPS), Public Health England, and NHS England has issued the guidelines pertaining to the use of PPE. This PPE are reviewed by the governing agencies, to check their specification as per the set guidelines.

The growing trade war between the two largest economies includes the US and China, along with geopolitical tensions, global trade tensions, and global macroeconomic performance as a whole are the factors responsible for the current unstable economic conditions. The unstable economy is considered as a challenge for the growth of this market. Furthermore, in 2020, due to the geopolitical issues between the US, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, there is a decline in crude oil prices. As most of the protective equipment’s are produced from crude oil products, so this fluctuation in crude oil prices globally, act as a challenging factor for the growth of this market during the forecast period. Additionally, in 2020, the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic affecting lives, businesses, individuals, and industries. The rapid spread of this pandemic disease has had a major impact on global PPE markets due to the lockdown and drastically falling demand of PPE products from developed and developing nations across various industries excluding healthcare/medical. The outbreak of coronavirus pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on global healthcare systems and that surges in medical needs with the continuous growth of coronavirus worldwide. This high and uncontrolled growth in COVID-19 pandemic disease has accelerated the huge demand for protective equipment but due to supply constraints and sudden outbreak, there is a shortfall for personal protective equipment globally. Furthermore, the US, Spain, Italy, UK, and India are facing the challenge of this shortfall and to overcome on this they are using lower-protection PPEs like masks for infection control procedures on hospital patients. Additionally, these countries are requesting non-PPE manufacturers to produce protective equipment in order to meet the demand. For instance, in February 2020, the US president has ordered General Motors and Tesla to make ventilators and protective equipment. So, this use of low-quality PPE and entering the new non-PPE manufactures will increase the competition for the existing key players along with create challenges in terms of the quality of the products during the forecast period.

Technology launches, acquisitions and R&D activities are key strategies adopted by players in the Personal Protective Equipment market forecast. In 2019, the market of global Personal Protective Equipment top 10 players accounting for xx% of the share. Major players in the Personal Protective Equipment industry analysis are 3M, Honeywell International Inc., E I DuPont de Nemours and Co., Kimberly-Clark Corporation, MSA Safety Inc., Ansell Limited, Lakeland Industries, Inc., Alpha Pro Tech, Ltd., Sioen Industries NV, Radians, Inc., and Fire-Dex, Protective Industrial Products, Inc., Cordova Safety Products, Lindstrom Group, National Safety Apparel.