How our rubber glove doing during year 2020? Prior to year end last year, MARGMA is revising its export revenue projection for 2020 from RM21.8 billion to RM29.8 billion for year 2020 based on the performance in 1H2020.

According to my compile, Malaysia rubber glove actual export value for year 2020 has doubled to RM35.3 billion from 2019 and far exceeding MARGMA projection of RM29.8 billion by 18.3%. We knew this surge was due to higher global demand of rubber gloves, higher factory utilisation rate, additional production capacity and of course higher ASP.

But what about this year 2021, next year 2022 and post pandemic? Will it fall to pre pandemic level? Personally, I don't see this happening in future with higher awareness on hygiene, higher public healthcare expenditure and etc. Even without the pandemic, with organic growth of 10% CAGR, rubber gloves (NR & NBR) market size is expected to reach $7.5 billion by this year from 2019 ($6.2 billion).

If we look on Frost & Sullivan report, the forecasted market size of global rubber gloves (NR and NBR) market for year 2020 is USD11.6 billion. In term forecasted sales revenue, latex gloves projected at $3.2 billion and nitrile gloves has the largest market share of $8.4 billion for year 2020E.

With average exchange rate of USD1 to MYR4.2015 for year 2020, Malaysia export value was c. $8.4 billion accounted 72% of F&S forecast. However, I believe the actual market size is bigger than the forecast. From what I gathered, China export value for rubber gloves estimated at $2.1 billion. If we include our neighbour Thailand and Indonesia, I'm sure it's exceeding the forecasted $11.6 billion.

Forget everything start from zero, look further the market size post pandemic!