This month, Charles Thurston, our Latin America correspondent, provides an expansive overview of the entire Latin America coatings market.

The Brazilian paint and coatings market ended 2024 with record sales, exceeding all forecasts offered over the course of the year. Brazil’s demand for paint and coatings grew to 6% for the year. In years past, the industry has typically outpaced GDP acceleration by one or two percentage points, but last year the ratio accelerated, according to a recent report by Abrafati, the Associação Brasileira dos Fabricantes de Tintas.

Abrafati reported that Brazil’s paint and coatings industry reached a milestone in 2024, selling 1.983 billion liters.

Thurston reported that by paint industry segment, Brazil’s performance was strong across the board, led by the automotive segment. “There was growth in all product lines from the paint and coatings industry [during 2024], most markedly in automotive OEM coatings, which came on the heels of a strong increase in automobile sales,” Abrafati said.

Brazil’s sales of new vehicles including buses and trucks surged by 14% in 2024 to a 10-year high, according to the Associacao Nacional dos Fabricantes de Veiculos Automotores (Anfavea). Full-year sales amounted to 2.63 million vehicles in 2024, returning the country to a global ranking of eighth largest among markets, according to the organization. (See CW 1/24/25).

“Automotive refinish coatings also saw sales grow at a rate of 3.6%, due to both an increase in new car sales—which has effects on used car sales and on spending on repairs in anticipation of those sales—and the higher level of consumer confidence,” Abrafati observed.

Decorative paints also continued to perform well, with a record volume of 1.490 billion liters, Abrafati calculates.

Industrial coatings also posted strong growth, boosted by government development programs begun in late 2023 under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“Another highlight of 2024 was the performance of industrial coatings, which grew in volume by more than 6.3% relative to 2023. All segments of the industrial coatings line exhibited high growth, particularly thanks to strong sales of consumer durables and advancements in infrastructure projects (stimulated by factors like the election year and contracts awarded to the private sector),” Abrafati noted.