A profile of the Italian paint industry

Citation

(2004), "A profile of the Italian paint industry", Pigment & Resin Technology, Vol. 33 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/prt.2004.12933cae.002

A profile of the Italian paint industry

Keywords: Paints, Coatings technology, Italy

The Italian paint industry comprises about 900 manufacturers but just 16,000 employees, which results in an estimated 40 per cent of companies with a staff of five or fewer. Most of the large paint producers – and 40 per cent of Italian paintmakers – are concentrated in the northwest and especially in the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Val d'Aosta. These regions account for 70 per cent of the Italian paint industry's annual turnover.

The 950,000 tonne Italian paint market also has some unusual characteristics. The top four sectors account for 90 per cent of the market in volume terms, with powder coatings and wood finishes being two of the major sectors (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 The Italian paint market in 2002 (per cent)

Both of the automotive sectors – OEM and refinish – are quite small, the former owing to the decline of Fiat as the only mass-producer of cars on Italian soil and the latter as a result of negative market influences resulting from government policies, as well as technical achievements. The four main producers of automotive refinishes for the European market, Akzo Nobel, BASF, DuPont and PPG have 57 per cent of the Italian automotive refinish between them. Lechler is their largest Italian rival.

Italy is a net exporter of paints, exporting over 238,000 tonnes and importing just 92,000 tonnes in 2002. In both cases the ratio of solvent to water-based types is almost 2:1.

Fabio Albertario, author of A Profile of the Italian Paint Industry said "Although there are sectors which show signs of stagnation or decline, there are also parts of the market where innovation and commitment to quality can still guarantee good levels of growth, for example in the yacht paint and heavy duty coatings sectors".

The contents of A Profile of the Italian Paint Industry are:

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  Introduction

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  Executive summary

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  Background

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  The Italian Paint Industry (which includes nearly 60 short company profiles)

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  Italian paint production, trade and consumption

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  Italian paint market data

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  End-user industries

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  Market forecast to 2007

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  Concluding remarks

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  Selected importers and distributors of raw materials

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  Directory of Italian paint manufacturers

A Profile of the Italian Paint Industry (135 pp. and 57 tables) costs $;2,000 for a single hard-copy edition. Sections of the report, priced individually, will also be available to purchase online at: www.informationresearch.co.uk

For more information on this publication, please contact: Fabio Albertario. E-mail: fabio.albertario@brg.co.uk; Information Research (A Division of BRG (UK) Ltd), CP House, 97 – 107 Uxbridge Road, Ealing London W5 5TL, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 20 8832 7830; Fax: +44 (0) 20 8566 4931; E-mail: irl@brg.co.uk; Web site: www.informationresearch.co.uk