EN
Polycarbonate Sheet Industry Rises Steadily: Technology and Scenarios Drive a New Chapter of High-Quality Development
Time : 2026-02-09
With the improvement of global green building standards and the accelerated expansion of the new energy industry, polycarbonate sheets, with their excellent characteristics such as light weight, high light transmittance and impact resistance, have continued to release market demand, and the industry has ushered in a golden period of steady development. Data shows that the global market size expanded from 3.8 billion US dollars to nearly 5.2 billion US dollars from 2021 to 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5%. As the global core driving force, China's domestic market size exceeded 12 billion yuan in 2025, with an annual output of over 850,000 tons, and the industry as a whole showed a high-quality development trend.
From a global perspective, the polycarbonate sheet market has significant regional differentiation characteristics, and the Asia-Pacific region has become the core of growth. According to the "Engineering Plastics Application White Paper" released by the China Plastics Processing Industry Association, the global annual output of polycarbonate sheets exceeded 1.8 million tons in 2024, of which the Asia-Pacific region accounted for more than 52%. The urbanization process and infrastructure construction in China, India and Southeast Asian countries have continuously driven the demand for products such as hollow sheets and solid sheets. As the world's largest producer and consumer, China has gathered well-known enterprises such as Covestro and Wanhua Chemical, with continuous release of domestic production capacity. In 2024, the apparent consumption reached 673,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%, and the import dependence rate dropped to 11.2% year by year.
Technological innovation has become the core engine of industrial upgrading. At present, the industry is gradually getting rid of homogeneous competition in mid-to-low-end products and moving towards high value-added and functional directions. In response to the demand for emerging scenarios such as new energy vehicle sunroof glass and photovoltaic backsheets, leading enterprises have increased R&D investment, optimized production processes, and launched high-end products such as optical grade, flame-retardant grade and anti-ultraviolet modified products, effectively filling the gap in the domestic market. At the same time, the improvement of light weight, recyclability, energy saving and other characteristics has made polycarbonate sheets conform to the "dual carbon" goal, and their application advantages in the field of green buildings have become increasingly prominent.
The continuous expansion of application scenarios has injected new momentum into industrial growth. The construction field is still the leading market, accounting for 45%. From the "Magic Cube" suspended building at Plaza de Bakrisimo Moreno in Ecuador to the transparent facade of Porto Concert Hall, polycarbonate sheets, with their advantages of light weight, semi-transparency and impact resistance, have become the preferred material for modern architectural design, widely used in large public facilities such as airport terminals and stadiums. At the same time, the demand in emerging fields such as new energy vehicles, photovoltaic backsheets and intelligent terminals is growing rapidly, promoting the continuous optimization of product structure and becoming a new core driving industrial growth.
Despite the good development momentum of the industry, it still faces challenges such as fluctuations in raw material prices and structural shortages of high-end products. Insiders said that in the future, enterprises need to continuously increase R&D investment to break through the technical bottlenecks of high-end products, and optimize the supply chain layout to reduce cost pressure. Looking ahead to 2026-2030, with the improvement of green building standards and the expansion of the new energy industry, the global polycarbonate sheet market size is expected to reach 7.2 billion US dollars, and the Chinese market is expected to exceed 18 billion yuan, with a CAGR of over 7%.
As a new type of material with both high performance and environmental protection properties, polycarbonate sheets are gradually replacing traditional glass and some engineering plastics, playing an important role in many fields. Driven by both technological innovation and scenario expansion, China's polycarbonate sheet industry is expected to achieve high-end, green and diversified development, injecting strong momentum into the high-quality development of the new material industry.