Market Trends<br>U.S. Pressure Sensitive Tape Shipments to Reach $5.7 Billion in 2006
Advances will be driven by material enhancements that will continue to enable tapes to widen their scope of use by supplanting alternative joining and bonding systems in industrial assembly, packaging and other applications. Value gains will also be supported by a shift in the product mix toward higher-performance, value-added technical tapes for industrial applications. Further expansion for tapes will be restrained by maturity in significant applications. These and other trends are presented in Pressure Sensitive Tapes, a study from The Freedonia Group Inc., a Cleveland-based industrial market research firm.
Tapes fabricated from higher-end plastic films such as polyester, PTFE, nylon and polyimide will continue to supplant cloth, rubber and paper tapes as well as commodity film-backed tapes based on their durability and high-temperature resistance along with usage in fast-growing niche applications, such as electronics and industrial assembly.