Azoxystrobin is a systemic fungicide commonly used in the agricultural sector worldwide. The chemical is utilised as an active agent protecting plants, fruit and vegetables from a wide variety of common fungal diseases. After all, it possesses the broadest spectrum of activity of all known antifungals currently. The effective functionality of azoxystrobin grants it the only counteragent that has the ability to protect against the four big groups of fungal and fungal-like diseases.
It is able to prevent or cure powdery mildew, downy mildew, rust and rice blast diseases. In agriculture, the post-emergence fungicide is used mainly for cereals, besides grape vines, cereals, potatoes, apples, bananas, citrus, tomatoes and other crops.
Azoxystrobin was first introduced in 1998 and can be applied as a foliar spray or a soil-treatment prior to planting, as it has a residual effect.
As a well-established product with a sales volume beyond 1 billion, Azoxystrobin has been rapidly growing since 2010 in China. The capacity of Azoxystrobin TC has risen remarkably with more than 73 registered Azoxystrobin TC and around 350 Azoxystrobin formulation. Compared with the trade brand Amistar by Syngenta, Chinese enterprises have released their own Azoxystrobin brand products, such as Nongjingling (48% difenoconazole Azoxystrobin SC) from Huizhou City Silver, Dingmao (30% difenoconazole Azoxystrobin SC) from Shenzhen Noposion, and Hemei (250g/L Azoxystrobin SC). However, the Chinese azoxystrobin market development is still behind the market leader of Syngenta.
Nevertheless, China’s azoxystrobin industry has shown an impressing progress over the last decade, creating a more important role in the worldwide market. More registrations have appeared and more azoxystrobin producers come out accordingly. As of H1 2017, there were 14 major producers of azoxystrobin technical in China, among which, there were 11 active producers.
As a result of the constant development, from 2011 to 2016, the annual ex-works price of azoxystrobin technical as well as formulation decreased in China.
From 2011 to 2016, China exported azoxystrobin products to more and more countries and regions and the number of exporters increased year by year. The top export regions are neighbours in South and South-east Asia as well as South America.
Thanks to increasing demand for azoxystrobin at in China and abroad, it is forecasted that during the next years, China's total output of azoxystrobin is going to keep increasing and the total export volume of azoxystrobin will continuously increase.
After the patent of azoxystrobin expired in Feb. 2010, more azoxystrobin producers have appeared in China in recent years. With the number of azoxystrobin producers increasing, the competition among azoxystrobin producers has become intense in China these years. Some of the small azoxystrobin producers have set their azoxystrobin production lines into idle or stop status, while large producers increase their capacities for azoxystrobin production. More and more market share is held in large producers' hands in China's azoxystrobin market.