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 creates value through process and product innovation and invests in research and development to implement new, 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 and recycled 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 Chemicals segment is thus positioned to drive BASF’s green transformation while supporting that of our customers.

The two 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 are thus currently focusing primarily on the completion and startup of our Verbund site in Zhanjiang, China, which we have planned as a pioneering project for sustainability. We are also continuously reviewing and improving our production structures in other regions and aligning them with regional market requirements, as demonstrated by the capacity expansions at the Verbund site in Antwerp, Belgium and the adapted vision for the future of the Verbund in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

In terms of production capacity, the Materials segment is a global leader in high-performance plastics and precursors and home to two divisions from BASF’s core businesses. 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. The Performance Materials division offers innovative and customized solutions in engineering plastics, polyurethanes and thermoplastic polyurethanes, and creates value through cocreations 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 in order to improve it continuously.

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, including 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. Building on our R&D capabilities, the segment develops new, more sustainable high-performance materials and applications for a broad range of industries.

Both divisions follow ambitious sustainability road maps to enable the green transformation of the customer industries they serve. 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 segment holds one of three top market positions with regard to production capacities in around 80% of its business areas, including polyamide 6, thermoplastic polyurethanes, polyurethane systems and engineering plastics.

The Industrial Solutions segment is a part of the BASF Group’s core businesses and markets and develops 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: paints and coatings, construction, electronic materials, chemicals, plastics and adhesives, paper coatings, automotive and 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, 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. This also enables our customers’ green transformation through their applications and processes. 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 have precisely these characteristics. With its broad product portfolio, the segment is ideally positioned for this. Our global presence enables us to operate close to our customers, collaborate with them on new solutions and strive for long-term partnerships that create mutually profitable growth opportunities.

Since January 1, 2025, the chemical and refining catalysts business has been reported as part of the Performance Chemicals division in the Industrial Solutions segment. It was previously part of the Catalysts division in the Surface Technologies segment.

The Nutrition & Care segment is also part our core portfolio. The Care Chemicals and Nutrition & Health divisions provide highly attractive and resilient 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.

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 bio-based and biodegradable products. The Care Chemicals division supports its customers globally with innovative and more sustainable high-performance 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 biopharma ingredients. With its (bio)pharma ingredients, the division serves a variety of markets, such as bioprocessing and formulation of vaccines and antibodies.

The basis for this segment’s business are highly competitive, world-scale plants that are deeply embedded in the BASF Verbund.

Some of our standalone businesses are bundled in the Surface Technologies segment, which consisted of the Catalysts and the Coatings divisions until the end of 2024. Together with our customers, we develop novel products and technologies for catalysts, coatings and battery materials. We also offer services in the areas of precious metals and base metals as well as surface treatments. Our aim is to drive growth by leveraging our portfolio of technologies to find the best solution for our customers in terms of functionality and cost. This helps our customers to drive forward innovation in their industries and contribute to more sustainable development.

Our key growth drivers are the positive medium-term development of the demand for chemicals in the automotive market, especially in Asia, and the shift toward sustainable low-emission mobility. Despite the current slowdown in the mobility transition, we are convinced of the long-term growth of the electric vehicle market. As one of the largest chemical suppliers to the automotive industry, the segment is developing customized, more sustainable solutions for battery materials, emission control, recycling and innovative coatings in close cooperation with its customers. Our specialties and system solutions in these areas enable our customers to stand out from their competitors.

As of the beginning of the 2025 business year, the battery materials and ECMS business units, which were formerly part of the Catalysts division, are being reported as separate operating divisions within this segment, in addition to the Coatings division. Additionally, since January 1, 2025, the chemical and refining catalysts business, formerly part of the Catalysts division, has been reported as part of the Performance Chemicals division in the Industrial Solutions segment.

The goal of high-performance farming has to be to provide healthy and affordable food globally to a rapidly growing world population¹ with an increasing demand for food, feed and energy. 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 sustainable agriculture by connecting innovation, customers and society.

As one of the world’s top agricultural solutions companies in terms of sales, we are making a positive impact on sustainably transforming agriculture and food systems. Our innovation-driven strategy focuses on 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 integrated into all business and portfolio decisions. In doing so, 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 to provide crop-specific offers across technologies. These include novel solutions for seeds, traits, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, biological solutions and digital products tailored to regional farming needs and crop systems.
 

¹ Compared with 2024, the world’s population is expected to grow by around 1.5 billion people by 2050; source: U.N. World Population Prospects 2024.