Almost half of the medical gloves circulating worldwide come from Malaysia. At the peak of the health crisis in 2021, their market share touched 49 percent of total global exports. This panic-driven demand became a peak season for the rubber gloves industry.
Rubber Gloves Domination in Export Market
High global demand turned rubber gloves into the backbone of Malaysia's export on rubber commodities. The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) report in 2024 noted that this product clearly dominated all latex-based exports. At the onset of the pandemic surge in 2020, its export value instantly skyrocketed to RM 35.9 billion (around USD 8.6 billion).
The cash flow in this sector expanded rapidly, carving out new historical records just a year later. The export value of rubber gloves drastically shot up, breaking through the RM 54.8 billion (around USD 13.2 billion) mark in 2021. However, this massive revenue cycle fluctuated wildly, closely mirroring the erratic graph of the global health crisis.
Entering 2022, this export value eroded entirely to RM 19 billion (around USD 4.3 billion) due to plummeting demand. It shrank even further to its lowest point of RM 11.8 billion (around USD 2.6 billion) in 2023. The market only showed slight signs of recovery when the value crept up to 15.5 billion (around USD 3.4 billion) in early 2024.
Exponential Manufacturing Pace
Malaysia's manufacturing scale was pushed to the extreme to keep up with the demand of the global market. Long before the pandemic hit, the factory machines there were already printing fantastic numbers. Throughout 2019 alone, the rubber gloves industry was capable of producing up to 55.4 billion pairs of gloves in a single year.
As soon as demand exploded uncontrollably in 2020, this production capacity was quickly boosted. In just one year, the operational pace of factories jumped 85 percent to 102.5 billion pairs of gloves. The machines were continuously forced to run non-stop to print these crucial personal protective equipment.
This production pace continued until it recorded the highest peak in 2021. There was an additional capacity increase of 33.3 percent thanks to aggressive production line expansions. In that single year, factories in Malaysia successfully spat out a total of 136.7 billion pairs of gloves into the global market.
Meeting the High Demands
The primary destinations for Malaysia’s gloves mostly target high-income nations. The United States and the European Union have always been the most dominant importers in absorbing the supply. These two giant regions bought up to 61.5 percent of Malaysia's total medical glove exports.
This market dominance was clearly reflected in the incoming transaction values during the golden peak of 2021. The United States alone contributed a fantastic purchase transaction worth RM 21.4 billion (around USD 5.16 billion) . This massive cargo delivery was immediately followed by giant orders from the European Union reaching RM 12.1 billion (around USD 2.9 billion).
Post-Pandemic Market Conditions
The global rubber gloves demand cycle declined when the global health emergency status was officially lifted. The disappearance of global health pandemic immediately caused an oversupply effect due to overly rapid factory expansions. This situation violently struck down the selling price of rubber gloves in the international market.
The post-pandemic trend shift dealt a very heavy drop to the manufacturing industry's revenue pace. By the close of 2022, Malaysia's total rubber glove export value was recorded plunging sharply by 66.9 percent. The export value continued to decline by 37.81 percent in 2023, before rebounding by 31.51 percent by the close of 2024
