At present, the global major LOW-E glass manufacturers are Pilkington (U.K.), PPG (U.S.), Glaverbel (Belgium), and Saint–Gobain (France); the overseas market is basically controlled by above enterprises.
In the developed countries, LOW-E glass have been popularized in large scale; the utilization rate in Germany reached 92%, and this rate in South Korea and Poland was 90% and 75% respectively. It is estimated that the LOW-E glass demand volume in the international market will exceed 1.5 billion square meters by 2017; in the next five years, the global LOW-E glass demand volume will increase at the average annual growth rate of more than 17%.
As of 2012, LOW-E glass output in China was 108 million square meters; China owns more than 60 off-line LOW-E coating production lines with the production capacity of about 66 million square meters, and about 20 coating lines are under construction or planned to be constructed; of which, more than 10 enterprises make use of CVD method or PCVD method to conduct LOW-E coated glass online production.
In occidental developed countries, the popularizing rate of LOW-E glass exceeds 80%, while this rate in China is still less than 10%, which has a relatively huge gap compares with the developed countries, coupled with rapid urbanization development and the application in vehicles and household appliances, the market prospect of LOW-E glass is very broad. According to the forecast of "Twelfth Five-Year Development Plan of Flat Glass Industry", China's LOW-E glass demand volume will continue to increase rapidly with the compound growth rate of 18%, and the demand volume will reach 140 million square meters by 2015. However, as for the current market actual situation, the output and demand volume of LOW-E glass has exceeded expectation, the growth rate of past two years has exceeded 18%, and the overall market is still in a growing state; it is estimated that the LOW-E glass demand volume will reach 230 million square meters by 2017.
