AGC Flat Glass

Demand

The world market for flat glass in 2007 is estimated at around 44 million tonnes, equivalent to 4.4 billion square metres of glass with a thickness of 4 mm. This represents a value at the level of primary manufacture of about 20 billion US$. A proportion of the flat glass is further processed by laminating, tempering, coating and silvering for use in insulating glazing (for building applications) or automotive glazing. At this level, the market has a value of approximately 60 billion US$. In term of volume of glass consumed, the construction industry is the largest sector, with 39 million tonnes, followed by the automotive industry with about 5 million tonnes.

China is now the biggest market in the world. Europe, North America and China between them account for 80% of world glass demand.

Average annual consumption around the world is 6 kg per capita, although there are big differences between regions, ranging from less than 1 kg in India to more than 18 kg in western Europe. China for instance is already at 11 kg.

Growth in demand for flat glass has generally outpaced real GDP growth for the past 20 years. This is true not only for emerging markets, where demand is boosted by the booming automotive and construction sectors as in China or Russia, but also for mature markets (Japan, western Europe or North America) where higher performance and added value are required. New applications for glass also contribute to this growth. Innovation has extended the range of uses for glass and allowed it to play a greater role in the world in which we live. World demand has been growing by 5 to 7% in recent years, and the trend is expected to be similar around 5% in coming years.

Capacity

Total installed (or designed) capacity is about 65 million tonnes annually, which means that 185,000 tonnes of glass is pulled every day.
A breakdown of float capacity shows a similar profile to that of demand, China being the leader. Indeed in recent years there has been major increase of float capacity in China. This development has also brought new players into the glass industry.

AGC is the first world producer followed by NSG (Japan), Saint-Gobain (France) and Guardian (USA). These are also the only four global players with operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. AGC has recently expanded capacity in Russia (Klin, 2005) Czech Republic (Retenice, 2007) and in China (Suzhou 2006). Project is ongoing in Russia (Klin 2) where the largest tank in the world (1.000Tons per day) is under construction and is scheduled to start production in the first quarter 2009.