A series of recent changes in the waterproofing industry are attracting widespread attention in the global engineering field: many small and medium-sized waterproofing manufacturers that previously focused on low-priced and low-quality products have withdrawn from the market. Many engineering-end purchasers have encountered the problem of original suppliers going out of business and no after-sales service for subsequent waterproofing materials. The pace of industry reshuffle is accelerating significantly.
Data from professional research institutions show that China’s waterproof material output will be 2.538 billion square meters in 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 16.8%. The output in 2025 will be approximately 2.284 billion square meters, with production capacity shrinking by nearly 20% in two years. Industry calculation data shows that the domestic pure waterproof material market space in 2025 will be approximately 60-70 billion yuan, which is about 60% lower than the peak period of the industry. The trend of capacity clearing is very clear.
At the same time, driven by the cost of core raw materials such as asphalt rising from 3,000 yuan/ton to 3,350 yuan/ton, domestic waterproofing head companies collectively announced a 3%-8% increase in product prices in April 2026, and the industry as a whole officially bid farewell to the previous low-price competition stage.
In the context of the industry background of “small factories closing down and large factories raising prices”, the logic of engineering procurement is also changing: the procurement model that simply pursues low prices has found it difficult to guarantee project quality and follow-up after-sales. Choosing mature and reliable technical routes has become the core of controlling the cost of the entire life cycle of the project.
Previous industry sampling survey data show that the domestic roof sampling leakage rate is as high as 95.33%, and the sampling leakage rate of underground buildings has also reached 57.51%. The traditional technical route that relies on external waterproof layers has long-standing pain points of insufficient durability and high maintenance costs.
On January 1, 2026, GB/T 18445-2025 “Cement-based Penetrating Crystalline Waterproof Materials” was officially implemented. For the first time, the self-healing ability of waterproof materials was clearly defined at the national standard level. It also marked that the domestic waterproofing industry has officially shifted from “price war” to “technical war”. The technical route of structural self-waterproofing has also ushered in a window for rapid development.
At present, the technology of self-repairing waterproofing agent incorporated into concrete developed by Chinese companies is very mature. This type of product is added directly to the concrete, and the active substances in it will generate crystals when exposed to water to block the capillary pores inside the concrete, which can achieve 0.4mm.
The automatic healing of the following cracks solves the hidden danger of leakage from the structural level. There is no need for an additional external waterproof layer, and it also avoids the problem of repeated repairs after the traditional waterproof layer ages and is damaged. The service life is the same as that of the building structure. It is especially suitable for underground engineering, rail transit, municipal infrastructure, overseas large-scale projects and other scenarios that require high waterproof durability.
For practitioners in the global engineering field, when choosing waterproof products now, they should break away from the traditional logic of single price comparison and give priority to products that comply with the latest industry standards, have high technological maturity, and have been verified by a large number of projects. Only in this way can the long-term quality of waterproofing projects be guaranteed to the greatest extent while reasonably controlling costs.
