Water/Wastewater/Filtration World Market to Reach $484 Billion by 2010

Feb. 14, 2006

According to “Water, Wastewater and Filtration: World Markets, published by the McIlvaine Co., the market for water and wastewater treatment and flow control under a broad definition will grow to $484 billion worldwide in 2010.

This definition, while broad, is not even the broadest. Companies such as SPX have pursued water treatment as a supplement to water cooling, so its market is even broader. Irrigation and flood control are additional water-related markets which are not included in the above definition. In the broadest sense, the water treatment and flow control market is close to 1% of the world GDP. In 2010, when world GDP is $74 trillion, the water market will be $740 billion, according to the McIlvaine Co.

The market for water and wastewater equipment and services including chemicals, filtration, biological treatment and flow control will reach $348 billion in 2010. However, $165 billion will be unavailable to outside suppliers and represents services and operations not outsourced by end users.

On the other hand, the companies that supply these markets, such as GE and ITT, sell these products to the process markets and will generate $136 billion in revenue in 2010 in additional process sales. Therefore, the total water market available to outside suppliers will be $319 billion in 2010.

There is more money spent on valves for oil and gas, refineries and other process operations than there is on water and wastewater applications. There is slightly more money spent for pumps used in water and wastewater than in other applications. Many cartridge filters are used in non-water applications from blood purification to hydraulic fluids.

Whereas water and wastewater applications will generate revenues of $23 billion for the treatment chemicals industry in 2010, paper-making chemicals will generate $35 billion in revenues for many of these same companies.

In general, the water and wastewater market is growing faster than the process markets with the exception of biotechnology. The membrane filtration market, which will generate revenues of $8 billion for water and wastewater treatment in 2010, is growing at more than 7% per year.

Repair parts represent 23% of the entire market. Most of the repair part business will be in developed countries that have a large inventory of treatment systems. By contrast, the majority of the new equipment sales will be in developing countries including China.

Source: McIlvaine Co.

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