According to a new report titled Paper Coating Materials Market by Type, Application, and Geography - Regional Trends & Forecast to 2019, being offered by Research and Markets, Dublin, Ireland, the paper coating materials market was at an estimated $6.5 billion in 2013, with the highest share of more than 50% held by the Asia-Pacific and ROW together. The global market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 2.5% from 2014 to 2019. 

The highest investment is forecasted to be in the Asia-Pacific due to the growing application markets and availability of raw materials, especially in China. ROW is estimated to have the second highest growth at 2.8% from 2014 to 2019. The North American and European segments are projected to share together 48% of the value by 2019.

Imerys S.A. (France), Omya AG (Switzerland), Penford Corp. (U.S.), Michelman Inc. (the Netherlands), BASF SE (Germany), and Archroma (Switzerland) are the most important active players in the paper coating materials market. These companies showed the highest strategy adoptions among other players in the global paper coating materials market accounting for more than 80.0% of the total market activities between 2010 to 2014.

From 2010 to 2014, new product launch was the most important growth strategy adopted by the paper coating materials companies, accounting for a share of 42.1%. In 2012, Michelman launched two new products, followed by Penford Corp. acquiring the business of Carolina starches (U.S.). The other active players in market development of paper coating materials are BASF SE (Germany) and Imerys S.A.

The key companies offering paper coating materials are actively involved in launching new products in the market by investing in R&D. Irrespective of the company's size, all of the market participants are actively investing in developing low cost paper coating materials and delivering them to the market. The manufacturing companies are leveraging distribution networks of major companies by entering into strategic supply and distribution agreements. In this way, the companies are able to explore new markets and penetrate into the existing ones with highly efficient products, the report notes.