Growing Dispenser Market Faces Challenges

• Dispensers/sustainability—manufacturing and challenges of environmental footprint reduction, proactive developments and initiatives around recycling and the adoption of a circular economy, etc.

• Technological—state-of-the-art dispensers and brand positioning, leveraging intelligent/smart packaging for consumer engagement, safety, security, etc.

Looking ahead, the study says the rise of increasingly sophisticated digital and mechanical technologies means that both brand owners and dispenser manufacturers will need to make decisions on how to prioritize these technologies in order to maximize returns on brand loyalty and consumer engagement.

“Another major challenge faced by manufacturers of packaging dispensers is maintaining revenue performance in the face of limited underlying growth in primary packaging markets, declining disposable incomes, and the rise of reuse of dispensers in a circular economy,” notes the report.

Despite those challenges, Smithers Pira refers to dispensers as an “increasingly lucrative and innovative market.” Its analysis says the market consumed 119 billion dispensing fixtures in 2018, predicting 4% growth through 2023. It forecasts the value of the dispenser market to rise from $7.34 billion to $8.75 billion during that same timespan.

Smithers Pira notes that while dispenser consumption “is concentrated in the mature markets of Western Europe and North America, it is the world’s emerging and developing markets (notably China and India) that are acting as the engine of growth for the industry, as more consumers flow from rural to urban locations and adopt increasingly westernized lifestyles.”