GIA Announces The Release of a Global Report on Aerospace Fasteners Market

GIA announces the release of a global report on Aerospace Fasteners market. Sales in the global market for Aerospace Fasteners is projected to reach US$6.8 billion by the year 2018, encouraged by increased shipments of Aerospace Equipment and the growing trend towards large sized Aircrafts. Revival in the growth of Air Travel, and the resultant increase in Aircraft Maintenance is expected to make the aftermarket segment one of the strongest demand generators for Aerospace Fasteners over the next few years. The aerospace fasteners industry evolved alongside the aerospace industry which witnessed a continuous development of aircrafts from commercial, military and business airplanes to ballistic missiles and rockets. The aerospace sector uses a variety of fasteners such as hi-locks, bolts, nuts, washers, rivets, collars, screws, spacers and pins. All these fasteners are required to be certified by stringent standards governing usage in each end-use sector, ensuring high degree of entry barriers for new entrants in the industry. Aircraft fasteners are generally identified by the designations, AN, NAS and MS, which also specify their uses. The technologically sound, high-performance specialty aerospace fasteners and application specific, standard fasteners are poised to achieve robust growth over the coming years. Resurgence of Aircraft Manufacturing and improved military expenditure is expected to boost market prospects. These fasteners are also finding increasing uses in new markets including non-military applications and nanoaerospace. There is also a significant demand for high performance fasteners from the wind energy industry, where large diameter and high tensile fasteners are required for wind turbines. Further, governmental initiatives, in the form of increased investments in non-building construction, military and commercial aircrafts and satellites, are fueling demand for aerospace grade fasteners. The economic recession within the aerospace industry prolonged for three full years and weighed down significantly on several manufacturing industries, triggering a period of serious downslide in air travel and aircraft delivery volumes. Major airline companies including Boeing and Airbus recorded a sharp decline in aircraft manufacturing and resultantly a decline in demand for aerospace grade fasteners. Even as the industry staged a gradual recovery, the Euro sovereign crisis upset the already fragile stabilization process, particularly in several key European countries. Fleet expansion programmes were shelved in several markets of France, Italy, UK, Spain and Germany on account of rising inflation and tight fiscal budgets. Dwindling passenger volumes, higher fuel prices, carbon taxes, user fee and stringent regulations continue to be some of the other issues of immediate concern within the aerospace industry. However, after a depressed North American market and delivery delays in 2010, the fastener OEM sales witnessed a slow turnaround in 2011, although the growth remained largely below average. Manufacturers witnessed a spike in orders both from commercial equipment suppliers and fastener distributors. Several fastener OEMs also stocked up raw materials such as bar, wire and coil in anticipation of a further rise in demand. In particular, fasteners suppliers to the after-market and defense aircrafts sectors recorded a generous swell of orders. Over the last few years, the aircraft manufacturing industry has been driven by the need for high strength, lightweight aircrafts, thus bringing into focus the use of titanium aerospace-grade fasteners. Although titanium fasteners introduced in the 1960s are not new to the industry, they were primarily used in military aircrafts. However, the usage can now be said to have moved to commercial aircrafts with large aircraft OEMs such as Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Bombardier among others, placing huge orders for titanium fasteners. The current global demand for titanium fasteners is expected to double over the near term., mainly due to the advantage of a favorable strength to weight ratio when compared to other ferrous, aluminum and nickel alloys, making it an ideal fastener material for both commercial and military airframe applications. Use of titanium fasteners over the years have extended to jet and other engine support structures as well as aircraft landing gears. With technological advancements and development of novel manufacturing methods, the applications of this space-age metal are likely to grow significantly. New titanium alloys are also being developed with higher strength to meet the ever changing needs of the dynamic industry. Thus the aerospace-grade titanium (Ti) fasteners supply is firmly sewed up under long term contracts, valid for the next five-ten years. Developed markets of Europe and United States represent leading regional markets, capturing substantial share of the global market, as stated by the new research report on Aerospace Fasteners. With domestic consolidations creating some of the largest companies worldwide with enhanced capabilities and huge production base, the US and European markets are expected to continue their dominance over the industry. Asia-Pacific, on the strength of rapidly developing Asian markets, displays immense potential for rapid growth and is forecast to surge ahead at a CAGR of over 9.0% through 2018. APAC countries including Taiwan and China emerged as the largest net exporters of advanced industrial-grade fasteners, riding on factors such as favorable export regulations, large pool of cheap labor, low cost and raw materials. Manufacturers in China are aggressively building new products and looking at bridging the technological advantage enjoyed by developed western markets. Major players profiled in the report include 3V Fasteners Company Inc., Alcoa Fastening Systems, Allfast, Inc., B&B Specialties, Inc., B/E Aerospace, Emhart Teknologies LLC, LISI Aerospace S. A. S, National Aerospace Fasteners Corporation, Precision Castparts Corp., TFI Aerospace Corporation, TPS Aviation Inc., TriMas Corporation, and Wesco Aircraft Holdings, Inc. Source: Global Industry Analysts, Inc.