The Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Yingde Gases, completed 12 months ago, has drawn attention to both the business opportunities that exist within China, and the overall performance of the major international players operating in the country.
China is of huge significance to the international industrial gas community; according to Spiritus, the size of industrial gases market reached $3.9bn in 2009 and exceeded that of Germany for the first time and thus made China the third largest market in the world. Continued high growth (forecast 15% p.a.) will propel China towards and beyond that of Japan by 2015.
All the major gas companies, with exception of Airgas, are present in the market – either directly or through joint ventures.
If gas revenues for all business ventures are taken as 100% revenues, Linde remained the number one player in the market in 2009 (12% market share) but Air Liquide and Praxair are not far behind and have a number of projects coming on-stream in 2010 and 2011 that may change the order of power, but not the message – that the major players are very much growing their business in China.
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