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Although nanotechnology will ultimately impact several end user industries, various technical,
marketing and other hurdles need to be overcome before nanotechnology takes its rightful place as an enabler for various markets such as microelectronics, biotechnology, and health care. These challenges and differences of opinion regarding commercial
applications are reflected in the widely diverging estimates of the size of nanotechnology markets. We add this note based on a recent market study by research firm BCC. Estimates by market researchers BCC of the global nanotechnology market in 2010 range from about $15.7
billion (the figure used in their report) to $1 trillion. By 2015, the market
may be worth more than $2.4 trillion, according to different market analysts. These
differences reflect not only different analytical methods and assumptions, but
also different definitions of the nanotechnology market.
As a reflection of the difficulty of quantifying the market for
nanotechnologies, one approach is to focus instead on the market growth in
development of new nanoscale technologies and applications. However, there are still challenges in this approach in defining the size of specific nanotechnology
markets, prices, and competition, as well as potential regulation.
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