Business Models of the Segments

The Chemicals segment is one of our core businesses and forms the heart of the Verbund with its production facilities. Its Petrochemicals and Intermediates divisions market high-quality basic chemicals and intermediates to customers in downstream industries. They also reliably supply BASF’s other segments with chemicals to produce higher value-added products and in this way, ensure the competi­tive­ness of the BASF Group.

The segment strives for technological leadership and operational excellence and focuses on individual value chains. It concentrates on the essential success factors of the traditional chemicals business: leveraging economies of scale and the advantages of our Verbund, high asset reliability, continuous optimization of access to raw materials, lean and energy-efficient processes, and reliable, cost-effective logistics. This enables fundamental cost advantages and opens up various opportunities for decarbonization. The segment aims to create value through process and product innovation and invests in research and development to implement new, more sustainable technologies and make existing technologies even more efficient. Thanks to our integrated production processes, the carbon footprint of a number of our products is significantly lower than that of our competitors. Furthermore, by using renewable, recycled and low-emission feedstocks in our production network, we can provide products with diverse sustainability attributes. Examples of these offerings include our LowPCF, ZeroPCF and Ccycled^® products.

The Petrochemicals and Intermediates operating divisions are continuously developing their value chains and are expanding their market position – especially in Asia – with investments and collaborations in growth markets. We want to participate in the growth of the largest chemicals market in the world and establish the Verbund site in Zhanjiang as a pioneer in sustainability in the manufacturing industry in China. We manufactured the first products from the Verbund there in November 2025, and commissioning of the steam cracker commenced at the end of December 2025. We are also continuously reviewing and improving our production structures in other regions and aligning them with regional market requirements. At the Verbund site in Ludwigshafen, for example, the production capacity of Neopor^® is being expanded.

The Materials segment is also a core business and in terms of production capacity is a global leader in high-performance plastics and their precursors. Materials is home to the Performance Materials and Monomers divisions. The Performance Materials division offers innovative and customized solutions in engineering plastics, polyurethanes and thermoplastic polyurethanes, as well as special plastics, and creates value through co-creations with customers, particularly in the field of sustainability. Our global production network enables us to provide our solutions wherever our customers are. At the same time, we constantly review the efficiency of our production network. The Monomers division has a broad portfolio of large-volume monomers and basic polymers in the isocyanate and polyamide value chains and follows a lean and cost-driven approach focused on efficient structures. In a large part of its business areas, the Monomers division holds one of the top three market positions with regard to production capacities, for example in polyamides and isocyanates.

The Materials segment combines expertise in basic chemicals with a diverse range of high-performance specialties and successfully operates some of BASF’s most profitable value chains, for example methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI). Throughout the chemical cycle, the Materials segment plays an important role in BASF’s portfolio with its high cash flow and earnings contributions. The fully integrated polyurethane and polyamide value chains with world-scale plants ensure cost advantages. Thanks to its R&D capabilities, the segment is developing new, more sustainable high-performance materials and applications for a broad range of industries, particularly in the automotive, construction, and consumer goods industries.

Both divisions follow ambitious sustainability roadmaps. They understand sustainability as the decisive factor for future business success and utilize their industry knowledge and application expertise to provide customers with the right solutions.

The Industrial Solutions segment is another part of the core businesses and develops and markets ingredients and additives for industrial applications. The customers of its two operating divisions, Dispersions & Resins and Performance Chemicals, are primarily active in the following key industries: coatings, construction, electronic materials, plastics and adhesives, paper coatings, automotive, petrochemical and petroleum processing, as well as energy and resources. The segment aims to generate value through customer proximity, in-depth industry expertise and a broad product portfolio that is tightly integrated into the BASF Verbund. The portfolio includes fuel and lubricant solutions, process catalysts and adsorbents as well as refinery catalysts, dispersions, resins and additives, electronic materials and plastic additives. The segment’s focus is on research and development with the aim of enabling a more efficient use of resources and developing high-performance and more sustainable products and production procedures. Furthermore, the divisions focus on efficient production setups and backward integration in our Production Verbund’s value chains. In addition, capacity management as well as technology and cost leadership are important levers for the segment.

Trends such as ever faster time to market for electronic materials innovations, longer product life cycles and increasing processing of recycled plastic are boosting the need for products that enable precisely these trends. With its broad product portfolio, the segment is ideally positioned for this. Our global presence enables us to operate in close proximity to our customers, collaborate with them on new and customized solutions and strive for long-term partnerships that create mutually profitable growth opportunities.

The Nutrition & Care segment is also part of our core portfolio. The Care Chemicals and Nutrition & Health divisions provide highly attractive markets with high-quality, high-performance products. Future growth in these markets will be driven by rising consumer awareness of sustainable product solutions with lower carbon footprints and the demand for natural and organic ingredients and their traceability. Moreover, digitalization, a focused technology and product portfolio, and close cooperation with our customers are crucial to meeting the dynamic market requirements. The basis for this segment’s business are highly competitive, world-scale plants that are deeply integrated in the BASF Verbund.

For this segment, we strive to expand its market position as a leading provider of nutrition and care ingredients. The divisions generally focus their portfolio on growth markets and continuously develop their capabilities in areas such as biotechnology. They offer new biodegradable products. The Care Chemicals division supports its customers globally with innovative and more sustainable high­perfor­mance products, solutions and concepts, especially in the cosmetics, detergent and cleaner industries. The Nutrition & Health division focuses on important product platforms (vitamins, carotenoids and feed enzymes), which are supplemented by selected growth fields such as special aroma ingredients and (bio)pharma ingredients. With its (bio)pharma ingredients, the division serves a variety of markets, such as bioprocessing and formulation of vaccines and antibodies.

Some of our standalone businesses are bundled in the Surface Technologies segment, consisting of the Battery Materials and Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions divisions. Together with our customers, we develop novel products and technologies for emissions catalysts, coatings and battery materials. We also offer services in the areas of precious and base metals. We leverage our portfolio of technologies to find the best solution for our customers in terms of performance and cost and thus to generate growth. This helps our customers to drive forward innovation in their industries and contribute to more sustainable development.

Our key growth drivers are the increasing demand for chemicals in the automotive market, especially in Asia, and the shift toward more sustainable low-emission mobility. As one of the largest chemical suppliers to the automotive industry, the segment is developing customized, more sustainable solutions for battery and catalyst recycling in close cooperation with its customers. Our specialties and system solutions in these areas enable our customers to stand out from their competitors.

Until October 2025, the Surface Technologies segment also included the Coatings division, which is no longer listed as part of the segment due to the following transactions: On October 1, 2025, BASF completed the sale of its Brazilian decorative paints business to Sherwin-Williams. In addition, on October 10, 2025, BASF and Carlyle announced they had signed an agreement for the sale of BASF’s automotive OEM coatings, automotive refinish coatings and surface treatment business units. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to the approval of the relevant competition authorities.

The Agricultural Solutions division, which shares its name with the segment, is one of our standalone businesses. As one of the world’s leading agricultural solutions companies, we are making a positive impact on sustainably transforming agriculture and food systems. The goal of efficient farming is to provide healthy and affordable food globally to a rapidly growing world population.¹ At the same time, farmers must reduce their environmental impact as natural resources are limited. We support them in achieving this and strive to contribute to building a sustainable future for agriculture by connecting innovation, customers and society.

The segment’s strategy focuses on long-term and profitable growth within selected crops and their appropriate cultivation systems: soy, corn (maize) and cotton in the Americas; wheat, canola (oilseed rape) and sunflower in North America and Europe; rice in Asia; and fruit and vegetables globally. Our sustainability approaches are integral to all business and portfolio decisions. In this way, we help farmers sustainably grow more and higher-quality crops.

We leverage our expertise in research and development as well as our many years of experience working with growers, data and artificial intelligence to provide crop-specific offers across technologies. These include novel solutions for seeds and traits, seed treatment, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, biological solutions and digital products tailored to the farming needs of their region and crop systems.