Potassium Sulphate Market Overview and regional Insights

Potassium sulphate (SOP) is one of the essential fertilizers that is used in the agricultural industry, as it provides one of the essential nutrients to plants such as Potassium. For instance, according to the Fertilizers Institute, Washington, potassium plays an important role in the plant nutrition process and is termed as “Big 3” primary nutrient. The increasing demand for potash fertilizers in the agriculture sector is expected to drive growth of the global potassium sulphate market over the forecast period.

Moreover, potassium sulphate market offers advantages such as prevention of infection of plants from pests and other microbes. Potassium sulphate also helps the plant to adapt to unfavorable weather conditions and aids plants in absorbing more minerals from the soil, and also strengthens the tree stalks.  In addition, other end uses industries of potassium sulphate include industrial, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, food & beverages, and others.

Among regions, Asia Pacific accounted for the largest revenue share of around 51.8% in the global potassium sulphate market in 2019. This is attributed to increasing population and growing demand for food grains, which is boosting growth of potassium sulphate use as a fertilizer in the region. For instance, according to an article published by Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asia Pacific is expected to account for around 1/3rd of the estimated 2,600 million increase in global population during the period of 2010 and 2050, thus requiring additional efforts to increase productivity of crops to cater to rising population in the region.

Potassium Sulphate Market

Moreover, Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing region over the forecast period, owing to increasing demand of food grains from the emerging economies such as China and India. For instance, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), food grain production in India was 283 million tons in 2018 and the government estimated the production to reach 291 million tons in 2019.

Among the forms, solid segment accounted for a major market share of 89.6%, in 2019. SOP provides essential nutrients to the plant and aids in improving the yield of the food grains and vegetables. For instance, according to the research article published by International Journal of Agronomy and Agricultural Research (IJAAR), in 2015, SOP increased the yield of sugarcane, wheat, cotton, and rice by 13.55%, 4.8%, 27.5%, and 2.9% respectively.