About Kunststoff Information

Kunststoff Information

KI – Kunststoff Information is a German business information service for the plastics industry, based in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Hessen. Since 1971 it has supplied executives in the German and European plastics industry with decision-relevant business intelligence through a weekly print newsletter and an extensive online portal at kiweb.de. Its offering includes plastics prices, market reports, daily news, email services, analysis tools and an online archive. The service describes itself as one of the most important media for the German plastics industry, with the highest number of paid subscriptions among comparable publications, and its price indices are accepted industry-wide and embedded in the price-adjustment clauses of countless supply contracts.

Overview

Kunststoff Information is not a general-interest magazine but a specialist business information service, comparable to a trade wire service for a single industry. Its core product is the weekly print newsletter, supplemented by the online portal kiweb.de, which publishes daily news, price data and market reports. The service targets executives and decision-makers in plastics production, plastics processing, machinery manufacturing, distribution and related sectors across Germany and Europe. According to the publisher's own profile, more than 5,500 European companies trust its data and reports.

The heart of the offering is price information. The KI price indices for plastics are among the most widely used benchmarks in the German-speaking industry: they are accepted across the sector and written into the sliding-scale clauses of innumerable supply contracts, meaning that the prices KI publishes directly affect the commercial terms between suppliers and customers. This gives the service a quasi-institutional role in the market: it is not merely reporting on prices but providing the reference data on which contracts are based.

Alongside prices, KI publishes market reports analysing supply, demand, capacity and trade flows for the major polymer families, daily news on company developments, investments, personnel changes and regulatory issues, and email services that push selected information to subscribers. Analysis tools and an online archive allow subscribers to work with historical data and track market developments over time. The service also runs the KI Dialog, a semi-annual survey of industry executives on business performance and expectations, investment and employment, conducted since 2001, whose results are published as press releases and widely cited in the trade press.

History

Kunststoff Information was founded in 1971, at a time when the German plastics industry was entering a phase of rapid growth and increasing complexity. The post-war expansion of polymer production had created a large and differentiated market, and companies needed independent, timely information on prices and market conditions to manage purchasing and sales. KI filled that gap, establishing itself as the reference service for plastics business intelligence in Germany.

Over the following decades the service grew with the industry. The weekly print newsletter remained the flagship product, while the online portal kiweb.de was developed into a comprehensive digital platform with daily news, databases and analysis tools. The KI Dialog survey, launched in 2001, added a proprietary economic indicator to the portfolio: by polling executives twice a year on business conditions, investment plans and employment expectations, KI created a sentiment index for the German plastics industry that is regularly quoted in industry reporting. The 43rd survey in mid-2022 and the 44th in early 2023, for example, documented the industry's slide into crisis mode amid the energy price shock and the war in Ukraine, with the publisher reporting plunging sentiment readings comparable to previous crisis peaks.

The publisher is the Kunststoff Information Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, based at Saalburgstraße 157, D-61350 Bad Homburg, with Andreas Hertsch named as managing director in the company's publications. The company is registered in the commercial register of Bad Homburg. As an independent specialist publisher, it has remained focused on its single industry, a concentration that underpins the credibility of its price reporting: KI's value to subscribers depends on its perceived neutrality in a market where price information is commercially sensitive.

Content and Sections

The content of Kunststoff Information is organised around the information needs of plastics industry executives. Price reporting is the foundation: the service publishes price indices and assessments for the major standard thermoplastics, engineering plastics and recyclates, with the data structured for use in procurement and sales. Market reports complement the price data with analysis of supply and demand, production outages, import and export flows, and capacity developments.

The daily news service covers the industry's corporate and market developments: mergers and acquisitions, capacity investments and closures, personnel changes in executive suites, new product launches, and regulatory developments affecting the industry, from chemicals regulation to recycling legislation and EU plastics policy. The email services deliver curated selections of this news to subscribers' inboxes, allowing executives to stay informed without monitoring the portal continuously.

The KI Dialog survey is a distinctive content product. Conducted every six months since 2001, it asks industry leaders about their assessment of business development, expectations for the coming period, investment intentions and employment plans. The results are published with commentary and provide a regular, methodologically consistent picture of industry sentiment. The survey's findings are picked up by the trade press and sometimes by general business media, giving KI a public profile beyond its subscriber base.

The service also offers training and knowledge products: in-house training for newcomers, experts and executives, executive presentations for strategy meetings and board sessions, expert lectures at conferences, and conference organisation around plastics-relevant topics such as market development, medical technology and recycling, offered in connection with major plastics trade fairs including the K show, Fakuma and Chinaplas. These activities extend the brand from information provision into professional education and networking.

Publisher and Organization

Kunststoff Information is published by the Kunststoff Information Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Saalburgstraße 157, D-61350 Bad Homburg, telephone +49 (0)6172 9606-0. The managing director named in the company's press materials is Andreas Hertsch, and the company is registered under HRB 4334 at the Bad Homburg commercial register. Press and editorial contacts have included Christine Halfen and Katharina Kolk in the roles handling press enquiries.

As an independent specialist publisher, the company's organisation is built around the production of the newsletter, the maintenance of the online portal and its databases, and the conduct of the KI Dialog surveys. The editorial team combines journalists with market analysts, reflecting the dual character of the product as both a news service and a data provider. Detailed information about staff numbers and the current editorial leadership is not publicly confirmed.

The business model is subscription-based, with the weekly newsletter and portal access sold as packages to companies. The publisher states that KI has the highest number of paid subscriptions among comparable German plastics publications, a claim that reflects the service's entrenched position: for many companies, the subscription is a routine cost of doing business, comparable to a market data terminal. Additional revenue comes from advertising, training and conference activities, and from the licensing of price data.

Digital Presence

The online portal kiweb.de is the digital centre of the service. It hosts the daily news feed, the price databases, market reports, the archive and the analysis tools, with access controlled by subscription. The site is in German, reflecting the service's core market, and is designed as a working tool for industry professionals rather than a general news site: the emphasis is on data retrieval, alerts and research rather than on broad audience engagement.

The publisher also uses the web for corporate communication: press releases on the KI Dialog survey results are published as PDFs on kiweb.de and distributed to the trade press, where they are regularly cited. The training and conference offerings are presented online, with brochures available for download. The digital strategy is thus fully aligned with the business model: the portal is the product, and the public web presence serves to demonstrate expertise, attract subscribers and support the survey and events businesses.

In an industry where price transparency is both essential and commercially sensitive, Kunststoff Information has maintained for over five decades a position of trust: its indices are written into contracts, its surveys are quoted as economic indicators, and its subscriber base of more than 5,500 companies gives it a reach that few specialist publishers achieve. It remains the reference information service for the German and European plastics industry.