Consumer Electronics Packaging Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The consumer electronic packaging market is expected to reach a CAGR of 9.5% over the forecast period (2021 - 2026). Packaging of an electronic system must consider protection from mechanical damage, cooling, radio frequency noise emission, and electrostatic discharge. Manufacturers of consumer electronics packaging products are focusing more on protective packaging products such as air bubble wraps, air pillows, and other inflatable packaging products that can protect consumer electronics products. In the coming period, these packaging solutions can cater to the trends in all the electronic segments.

Key Highlights

• Prompting a strong demand in the anti-counterfeit in electronics packaging drives the market. Packaging includes overt and covert technologies like barcodes, holograms, sealing tapes, and radio frequency identification devices to preserve the integrity of products. The radical emergence of e-commerce in emerging economies has been a boon for the global anti-counterfeit electronics packaging market, as the vendors have to impart a robust tracking technology such as RFID in order to deliver products to designated destinations.
• According to Corporation Service Company (CSC), the counterfeit consumer electronics industry is set to exceed USD 3 trillion (U.S.) by 2020. With fraudsters using the obscurity afforded to them by the online world, it costs genuine brands lost revenue and also reputation.
• Further, eco-friendly packaging is becoming an emerging trend in the packaging of electronic products. There has been a significant push by the government authorities and regulators for moving towards green packaging. The brands and the customers are both becoming conscious of eco-friendly packaging and protecting the environment from unwanted non-biodegradable packaging waste.
• For instance, Zune moves to a new packaging format from the earlier clamshell packaging. The new packaging is more efficient, eco-friendly, and convenient to open. A plastic tray made from 80% recyclable paper pulp-bagasse and has a soft velvety texture.
• However, the regulations pertaining to the use of plastic challenges the market growth in packaging solutions provided by plastic materials. Also, PVC plastics are used in lightweight consumer electronics, but in higher temperatures, the quality of plastic channels decreases and is effectively broken, which leads to a disadvantage.

Key Market Trends

Paper Packaging Accounted For Significant Market Share in Smartphone

• According to the International Telecommunication Union, it is estimated that 4.30 billion people, representing around 58.7% of the global population, use mobile phones. Surging demand for secured packaging of mobile phone accessories, such as earphones, chargers, and USB cables, is providing a significant momentum to the global mobile phone packaging market growth.
• Smartphones come in their original packaging from their manufacturers. Most of the smartphones are packed in corrugated or cardboard boxes. These are a special type of materials that provide the required protection to the phones packed inside.
• Rigid boxes (also called set-up boxes) are sturdier and do not fold or collapse as folding cartons do. They are used when the product is heavy and in need of extra support. An iPhone box is an example of a rigid box.
• The iPhone packaging is a form of paper over board packaging. The walls of the box are made of super thick chipboard. The outside is a soft touch wrapping paper. Further, the molds are made of heat-molded polystyrene.
• For iPhone, the box mostly is made of a thick fiberboard (paperboard) greater than 24 mils, and the plastic used is PS (polystyrene). Thin plastic components that are flexible are most likely LLDPE or LDPE.
• Most phone boxes are designed to hide the contents of the box, and the phone one just bought. Players are continuously innovating new designs for attracting customers. For instance, RAZR's, on the other hand, is one of the most stylish boxes. It's designed to stand up and comes fully unfolded and ready for the user to pull out. The box features a minimalistic aesthetic that is incredibly appealing.
• Further, according to IBEF, smartphone users in India are expected to increase to 450 million by 2020. This enhances the growth of paper packaging (corrugated) in the coming period.

Asia-Pacific to Register a Significant Growth Rate

• An increase in spending by the middle class across the region on consumer electronics products such as smartphones, tablets, wearable electronics, televisions, etc. is driving the consumer electronics packaging market growth. The regional market is also witnessing a steadily increasing demand for low cost, less material, and lightweight packaging.
• According to gfu, the sales of television in 2019 were highest in this region, accounting for 83 million unit sales. This enhances the demand for corrugated carton packaging along with the demand of thermocol moulding, thermocol pipe section, thermocol sheet slabs.
• Further, many e-commerce companies are focusing on sustainable packaging solutions in order to reduce plastic wastes and moving towards paper-based packaging. The trend is also expected to hit the consumer electronics segment, which is sensitive to external impacts with better designing to make packaging more robust.
• The Indian e-commerce companies, such as Amazon, Flipkart, among others, are finding themselves alternatives to single-use plastic, as the Government of India is likely to restrict the use of plastic packaging. Walmart-owned Flipkart, in recent times, said that it has already reduced the use of single-use plastic by 25% and has set a target of using 100% recycled plastic by March 2021.​

Competitive Landscape

The consumer electronics packaging is fragmented in nature as there are various global players who are competing through the introduction of innovative packaging solutions, acquisitions, partnerships, etc. Key players are DS Smith PLC, Sealed Air Corporation. Recent developments in the market are -

• April 2019 - DS Smith agreed to sell two of its packaging businesses to US-based pulp and paper company International Paper for EUR 63 million. The strategy towards deal would reduce the level of competition in corrugated sheets, and corrugated cases market in Portugal, as well as the market for corrugated cases in Western France as the merged entity, would face limited constraints from competitors.

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