Needles are medical devices used for puncturing tissue, suturing, or passing a ligature around or through a vessel, and injecting medication into the body or withdrawing fluids from the body. These are small, slender, pointed instruments made up of stainless steel, glass, or plastic material.

The competitive landscape includes leadership mapping that provides information on the major players offering different types of needles and outlines the findings and analysis on how well each vendor performs within our criteria. The vendor evaluations are based on two broad categories — product offerings and business strategy. Each category carries different criteria, based on which the vendors have been evaluated. The evaluation criteria considered under product offerings include breadth of offerings, innovations, delivery of the products to specific end-users, and the availability of products in particular regions. The business strategy is evaluated on the basis of geographic reach, industry coverage, financial strength of the company, and growth strategies such as acquisition; agreements, partnerships, and collaborations; and expansions.

Vendors who fall into this category receive high scores for most of the evaluation criteria. They have a strong and established product portfolio and a very strong market presence. They provide mature, innovative, and reputable types of needles.

The players considered as dynamic are established vendors with very strong business strategies. However, they provide limited offerings and are less innovative in this market. They focus on a specific type of technology related to the product.

Innovators are vendors that have demonstrated substantial product innovations as compared to their competitors. They have a strong product portfolio; however, do not have a strong business strategy for their overall business.

They are vendors with niche product offerings and are expected to gain a significant position in the market. They do not have developed business strategies as compared to other established vendors. Also, they might be new entrants in the market and require some time before gaining traction in the market. On the basis of end user, the needles market is segmented into hospitals, diagnostic centers, home healthcare, and other end users. Other end users include trauma centers, blood banks, nursing homes, and acute care centers. The hospitals segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. In a hospital setting, needles are used on a daily basis for a majority of patient diagnosis and treatment. Growth in the healthcare sector in emerging economies along with the increasing out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure across the globe are the key factors driving the demand for injectable devices in hospitals. Diagnostic centers offer services to medical professionals and patients helping them with the diagnosis of their health conditions. A number of tests including pathology tests, radiology tests, and routine tests such as sugar, cholesterol, and creatinine are conducted at such centers. These centers are equipped with extensive infrastructure to carry out test procedures that may not be available with pathology laboratories attached to medical care centers. The tests conducted at these centers require a number of needles per procedure per patient. These centers provide results within a short interval of time, and offer various advantages to patients/physicians with regard to disease diagnosis like specialized testing capabilities, efficient billing and collection systems, and lower test costs. The services offered by these centers include diagnostics, cancer profiling, glucose monitoring, and counseling. Thus, with the growing number of diagnostic services offered at these centers, the demand for needles is expected to grow during the forecast period. The end users in this segment include patients and emergency response personnel who use injectable devices in home settings. Millions of users make use of needles and syringes at home for their health treatment. Devices such as blood glucose testing kits, insulin delivery devices, HIV test kits, and pregnancy test kits are prominently used in this segment. Homecare devices help in reducing hospital stays and discomfort for patients and enable caregivers and family members to provide treatment at home. Injections are increasingly used in homecare; these settings negate the need to travel to healthcare facilities, thus saving time and money for patients. Improving patient acceptability of homecare due to growing awareness has increased the trend of self-injection. Self-administration is especially useful for patients who require regular injections, such as hemophiliacs, and those suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis.