The market for permanent magnets is projected to expand to $18.8 billion by 2018, according to Markets and Markets.

With a compound annual growth rate of 8.7 percent from 2013 to 2018, the Permanent Magnet Market is expected to bounce back after experiencing decreases last year.

The permanent magnets market surged in 2011 after consumers and businesses demanded more rare earth magnets. However, as demand increased, firms were unable to meet consumer needs, leading to interruptions caused by depletion of rare earth permanent magnet supplies. The magnet scarcities caused the market to decline in 2012 until the supply stabilized. While China has been a major supplier of magnets, other countries are starting to pick up their mining operations of rare earth magnets to reduce their imports. The market is expected to continue its expansion as supplies remain stabilized.

China increased permanent magnet output by 630K tons in 2012
According to a study on the rare earth permanent market industry, Research and Markets indicated that in 2012, China's output of ferrite permanent magnets totaled 630,000 tons after increasing 5 percent year-to-year.

"In 2012, polarization of NdFeB industry got more serious," according to the Research and Markets report. "Capacity of low-end NdFeB (often used in fields other than automobile or VCM) registered about 200,000 tons, with a capacity utilization of 25  percent or so. By contrast, capacity of medium and high-end NdFeB (mainly applied to automobile and VCM) was dominated by nine enterprises under patent protection, with a capacity utilization over 80  percent."

These magnets are used for industrial operations as well as technological products. One of the factors in the increase in the worth of the permanent magnets market is the surge in demand for miniaturization.

"The enormous potential of this market attracts various small and big level industry players," according to the Markets and Markets report. "The Permanent Magnets market is globally growing at a rapid pace. Though the market size is large in Asia-Pacific, it is growing at a fast pace due to rising demand from end-user industries, especially in countries such as China and Japan."