The World Nonwovens Industry: Part 3 — Ten Smaller Producers

The Ten Producers

The profiles run in ranking order through Textilgruppe Hof of Germany; Jacob Holm Industries/Norafin of Switzerland; Suominen Nonwovens of Finland; Unitika of Japan; Union Industries of Italy; Albis of Italy; Precision Custom Coatings of the USA; Kuraray of Japan; KNH (formerly Kang Na Hsiung) of Taiwan; and Lantor of the Netherlands. Two Italian producers — Union Industries and Albis — were both established in the 1990s and focus mainly on the hygiene market, proof that a focused new entrant could still build a top-40 position in little more than a decade. At the other end of the age range, long established producers such as Suominen, Unitika and Kuraray hold their rankings through technology and international reach rather than scale alone.

Internationalisation as a Growth Driver

Denmark's Jacob Holm started up a new US$65 million spunlaced line in the USA in autumn 2005 and is targeting new technical applications with its output, as well as traditional markets for spunlace nonwovens such as wipes. Union Industries is in the process of adding a new spunmelt line, and Textilgruppe Hof has announced expansions throughout its facilities. The pattern repeats the business update in the same issue of Technical Textile Markets: capacity placed where the customers are, in the technology the growth markets use.

New Technologies and Product Markets

SP2C and Easy Care interlining products from Textilgruppe Hof have coatings to enhance performance in fashion fabrics — a nonwovens technology selling into apparel itself. Precision Custom Coatings has diversified into OmniStretch hydroentangled liners for the automotive market. Kuraray has commercialised nonwovens made from Vectran, which uses liquid crystal polymer technology. Together with the hygiene specialisation of the Italian producers and Jacob Holm's move into technical applications for spunlace, these examples give the report its argument: in the second tier of world nonwovens, ranking is defended by finding a technology or a market the largest producers have not made their own.

How Part 3 Fits the World Nonwovens Series

Technical Textile Markets reports regularly on the world's leading nonwovens companies, and this third part of the world nonwovens industry coverage completes the ranking picture by descending to the producers most surveys omit. The top-40 threshold it documents — sales of US$55 million at number 40 — gives smaller producers a measurable target, and gives the larger companies profiled in earlier parts a watch list of the specialists most likely to be acquired, or to grow into direct competitors, as roll goods sales continue their mid-single digit growth.