At the end of September 2026, China's white carbon black industry has stepped out of the old stage of scale expansion. The core competition of the whole industry has fully shifted to product value, modification technology and supporting application services. Industrial differentiation keeps deepening. General precipitated white carbon black is trapped in overcapacity. The recovery of downstream demand including traditional rubber and ordinary industrial coatings remains sluggish. End users purchase materials only to meet routine replenishment needs with quiet market transactions. Prices of basic grades linger at low levels for a long time, continuously squeezing corporate profits. Homogenized low-price competition keeps eroding business income. Small and medium manufacturers short of modification R&D capabilities and with single product lines face mounting operational pressure. In contrast, the market demand for high-end special powder products such as highly dispersible white carbon black, hydrophobically modified white carbon black and fumed silica continues to rise. Sufficient orders are obtained from emerging sectors including new energy tires, high-end organic silicone materials, electronic packaging and lithium battery diaphragm coatings. High-end products maintain stable market premium and serve as the core pillar driving industrial growth.

　　The upstream raw material market remains generally stable. Prices of sodium silicate, soda ash, sulfuric acid and other major raw materials fluctuate within a narrow band, and the impact of raw material costs on white carbon black pricing continues to weaken. The competition logic of the industry has been completely transformed. Low-end products compete for raw materials and production costs, while high-end products compete in powder surface modification processes, formula adaptability and full-set technical services. Most small and medium manufacturers have a single product structure and can only produce general filling-grade white carbon black without independent R&D capacity for powder modification. They can only compete for orders by cutting prices and are vulnerable to periodic market fluctuations. Leading enterprises rely on refined production line layout, focus on core powder modification processes, develop exclusive grades for different downstream application scenarios, and achieve long-term stable profits through consistent batch quality and customized formula solutions.

　　Capacity elimination of low-end white carbon black keeps moving forward, and outdated backward production lines exit the market at a faster pace. A large number of small and medium production lines are concentrated in the general filling field with serious product homogenization. Their application scenarios are limited to traditional fields such as ordinary rubber products, low-grade industrial coatings and conventional silicone filling. Downstream traditional manufacturing industries operate at low load rates, end customers have no plans for large-scale stockpiling, leading to slow product delivery. Coupled with tightening domestic supervision over energy consumption control, environmental protection and work safety, rectification pressure on outdated high-energy-consumption production lines rises steadily. Small and medium factories lacking technical renovation funds and R&D reserves withdraw from the market one after another. Industrial resources keep converging to leading enterprises with large-scale production and innovative R&D strengths.

　　High-end functional white carbon black sees volume growth across multiple downstream sectors, and emerging industries continuously bring new market increments. In the new energy tire track, with the steady increase in penetration rate of new energy vehicles, higher standards are raised for tire lightweighting, low rolling resistance and wet grip performance. Highly dispersible white carbon black can effectively reduce tire rolling resistance and improve tire safety performance. Tire enterprises keep increasing its proportion in formulas. Orders for high-end grades are sufficient and delivery cycles of some products are extended. In the organic silicone new material sector, hydrophobically modified white carbon black acts as a core reinforcing filler, widely used in high-end sealants, liquid silicone rubber, thermal conductive silicone gel and electronic silicone materials. It can significantly improve mechanical strength and aging resistance of finished products and optimize the dispersion effect of powder in organic systems. Demand for ultra-high-purity special white carbon black keeps climbing in photovoltaic encapsulation materials, energy storage buffer materials, lithium battery diaphragm coatings and other fields. Domestic powder accelerates import substitution and continuously expands market increment space.

　　The foreign trade export market shows increasingly obvious stratification characteristics. Export competition for ordinary precipitated white carbon black becomes increasingly fierce. Newly built capacities in Southeast Asia and the Middle East are successively put into operation, seizing the global low-end powder market with low labor and land costs. Export prices of domestic basic grades are under pressure and export profits keep shrinking. High-end modified white carbon black, highly dispersible white carbon black and fumed silica gain rising recognition in overseas high-end supply chains. Overseas purchasers no longer simply compare unit prices. They pay more attention to batch stability, low-carbon production qualification, supply guarantee and supporting technical services. The export volume of domestic high-end white carbon black increases steadily, advancing import substitution and overseas market expansion simultaneously.

　　Low-carbon production and carbon footprint certification have gradually become mandatory access thresholds for high-end supply chains. When screening suppliers, European and American multinational purchasers require enterprises to provide carbon footprint reports, production traceability documents and environmental compliance certificates besides product physical and chemical test reports. Leading domestic enterprises actively develop circular production processes, using rice husk ash and various industrial by-products to replace traditional mineral raw materials to prepare white carbon black, cutting production energy consumption and carbon emissions to smoothly enter the global high-end supply chain system. Restricted by outdated equipment and high energy consumption, small and medium low-end production lines can hardly realize low-carbon transformation and upgrading, gradually losing cooperation opportunities with high-end foreign trade customers and major domestic enterprises, which further deepens industrial polarization.

　　In terms of technological research and development, the import substitution process of domestic special white carbon black keeps speeding up. Domestic enterprises have broken through multiple key production processes for ultra-pure fumed silica and nano-modified special white carbon black, which used to rely heavily on imports. They continuously iterate technologies in purification, surface activation, precise regulation of microstructure and other directions, developing special grades tailored for cutting-edge fields such as pharmaceutical excipients, high-end cosmetics, 6G high-frequency substrates, flexible sensing materials and biodegradable composite materials. The business model of the industry is upgraded synchronously. Leading enterprises are no longer merely suppliers of powder raw materials. They transform into formula R&D partners for downstream customers, providing one-on-one customized modification plans and full-set application technical support based on customers’ production conditions and formula system requirements.

　　Market forecast: The structural divergence trend of the white carbon black industry will continue in Q4 2026, and a universal price surge across the whole industry is unlikely. Low-end filling-grade white carbon black will remain trapped in low-price competition with limited room for price increase, and the elimination of backward capacities will speed up further. Demand for high-end functional, modified and ultra-high-purity special white carbon black stays robust. Downstream tire, organic silicone, coating and new energy enterprises launch the year-end stocking cycle in Q4, which may bring periodic growth in orders for high-end products. From a medium and long-term perspective, the white carbon black industry has completely bid farewell to the era of capacity competition. Future industrial competition focuses on four directions: functional modification technology, low-carbon green production technology, supporting capacity for emerging industries and customized technical services. Leading enterprises mastering core technologies and stable high-end customer resources will continuously reap dividends from industrial upgrading.