The 25 largest European coatings manufacturers 2021

Our annual ranking shows little movement among the ranking of the 25 largest coatings manufacturers in Europe. However, the Corona pandemic had a significant influence on individual sales volumes.

Ranking top coatings manufacturers
Corona let sales of DIY paint manufacturers rise while industrial and automotive coatings suffer losses. Image source: Talaj – adobe.stock.com
There has been no change in the top group – at least in the order. The ten top-selling paint and coatings manufacturers are the same companies as in previous years. But there has also been little change in the ranking overall. For the last time, however, the Finnish coatings manufacturer Tikkurila and the German medium-sized company Wörwag will be listed. Both companies have been bought up by the American group PPG.

However, there was a little movement in the sales figures. If you added up all the sales (base year 2019) of the 25 companies on the list, you got a total of EUR 23.53 billion. This year, the cumulative figure fell by around 5 % to EUR 22.36 billion.

Sales also fell at the two top performers, Akzo Nobel and BASF’s Coatings division. Sales of the Dutch group fell by 8.1 % to EUR 8.53 billion. At BASF, it was even more than 17 % to around EUR 3.09 billion – mainly due to the weakening automotive sector. Sales at Grebe Holding even fell by over 26 %. However, this not insignificant drop in sales resulted exclusively from the exit from the Chinese joint venture at the end of 2019. The Austrian company Tiger Coatings also generated 15 % less sales than in the previous year.

Other companies, mostly architectural coatings manufacturers posted gains. At first glance, it should be noticeable that these paint and coatings producers in particular are represented on the list with increased sales. Last year, the DIY sector boomed extremely. This contrasted with many industrial sectors and the automotive industry, some of which came under severe pressure. Nevertheless, it cannot generally be said that architectural coatings manufacturers generated more sales and industrial coatings manufacturers experienced declines.