Research and Markets: Worldwide Flat Glass Market Report - 2011 Edition

Flat glass is a type of glass which is primarily manufactured in plane form and then can be bent, curved or rolled as per the requirement. Flat glass can be manufactured by a number of processes, like float, rolled and sheet, out of which float process remains to be the most widely used one and around 90% of the total flat glass worldwide is manufactured through float process. Primarily, the flat glass is used in building products or construction industry, automotive industry and some specialty industries including PV cells and display market, among the others. Construction industry accounts for the maximum share in the flat glass consumption, followed by automotive, with some but growing share in the specialty industries.

The global flat glass market has increased in terms of available capacity as well as demand form the past few years, but declined in 2009, mainly due to the global economic recession. In terms of demand, China has been the largest market for flat glass, followed by Europe and North America. China is also the largest flat glass producing region, and is the only country where the demand had not been affected by the global economic recession, that started in late 2007.

With the solar PV market on a rise, the flat glass market is also going to benefit. There has been an increasing demand for energy efficient buildings, which would increase the consumption of glass in buildings and motor vehicles. Also, since the end use markets for flat glass are all highly sensitive to the global economic environments, this makes the flat glass demand correlated to the economic conditions.

The report analyzes the global flat glass market, with focus on regional markets including Europe, Japan, ASEAN, North America, South America, China and Former Soviet Union. The report delves into the factors driving the global demand for flat glass, as well as the recent prevailing trends in the global flat glass industry. The regional competitive conditions, along with the market share of the leading companies have also been given in the report. The report profiles the four largest players, AGC Group, Saint Gobain, NSG Group and Guardian.

By combining SPSS Inc.'s data integration and analysis capabilities with our relevant findings, we have predicted the future growth of the industry. We employed various significant variables that have an impact on this industry and created regression models with SPSS Base to determine the future direction of the industry. Before deploying the regression model, the relationship between several independent or predictor variables and the dependent variable was analyzed using standard SPSS output, including charts, tables and tests.

Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 1.1 Glass: An Overview 1.2 Flat Glass 2. Global Flat Glass Market 2.1 Market size 2.2 Segments Based on Application Market 3. Regional Analysis 4. Key Trends 4.1. Sustainability throughout the Life Cycle 4.2 Trend in Capacity Utilization Rates 5. Growth Drivers 5.1 Growing PV Solar Market 5.2 Economic Growth 5.3 Increasing Demand for Energy Efficient Buildings 5.4 Growth in Automobile Industry 6. Competitive Landscape 7. Company Profiles 8. Market Outlook 8.1 Market Forecast 8.2 Forecast Methodology Companies Mentioned: - Asahi Glass (AGC) - Saint Gobain - NSG Group - Guardian

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