Opportunities in the Global Ice Cream Sector 2026

Provides an overview of current ice cream scenario regarding the future outlook in terms of ingredients, product claims, labeling, distribution, and packaging. The analysis also covers regional overview across five regions - Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Americas, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe - highlighting industry size, growth drivers, latest developments, and future inhibitors for the regions.

The global ice cream market recorded steady growth in 2025 and is forecast to post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4% during 2025-30. The Americas led with a 34.1% share by value, although expansion is constrained by the region's mature market dynamics. Take-home and bulk ice cream remained the largest category, accounting for 50.4% of the market in 2025. Looking ahead to 2025-30, Eastern Europe is projected to deliver the fastest growth, with a forecast CAGR of 6.4%. Unilever remained the market leader in 2025, with a 19.6% share by value, followed by Froneri Lux Topco (9.1%) and General Mills (2%). In 2025, modern retail was the dominant global ice cream channel, generating 64.3% of value sales. Global ice cream packaging is forecast to increase from 57.7 billion pack units in 2025 to 62 billion by 2030, growing at a 1.4% CAGR.

Key Highlights

• Rising appetite for indulgent formats-such as loaded sundaes, layered tubs, chocolate-coated bars, filled cones, and bite-sized novelties-is boosting both impulse purchases and at-home consumption.
• Growing health awareness is accelerating demand for low-sugar and no-added-sugar ice creams, often sweetened with alternatives and positioned for calorie-conscious consumers.
• Bold global flavors, limited-time releases, and dessert-inspired mix-ins, often boosted by co-branded collaborations, are sparking trial among novelty-seeking consumers.
• Premiumization is supporting sector value growth, with shoppers seeking richer textures, higher-quality ingredients, artisanal cues, and distinctive or limited-edition flavors.

Scope

This report brings together multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the global ice cream sector, analyzing data from 108 countries. It includes an analysis of the following:

Global market snapshot: Includes executive summary, current sector scenarios in terms of ingredients, manufacturer claims, labeling, and packaging. The section also touches on the key growth enablers and inhibitors for the ice cream sector. The analysis also includes a global overview, along with regional and category-level data and analysis, highlighting sector size and evolution, value and volume shares by category, and growth drivers. The section also introduces the 10 high-potential countries and the ranking that will be analyzed in-depth in the regional overview and country deep dive section.

Consumer trends: Provides an overview of evolving consumer trends, supported by GlobalData's in-house consumer surveys and product examples.

Regional overview and country deep dive: The section includes regional analysis, including key growth drivers, and the major trends prevalent in the ice cream sector in the respective regions. It also includes performance overview, competitive landscape, distribution analysis, and packaging analysis for the high-potential countries in each region (two per region).

Competitive landscape: The competitive landscape section provides insights into company and brand performance.

Health & wellness analysis*: Provides insights on health & wellness products in terms of value and percentage share in the overall ice cream sector at a global and regional level during 2020-25. The analysis includes key health & wellness attributes and consumer benefits driving sales of ice cream products across the five regions in 2025. It also covers the market shares of leading companies selling products with health & wellness attributes.

Distribution analysis: Provides an analysis of the leading distribution channels in the ice cream sector at a global and regional level. It also maps the performance of the leading distribution channels over the period 2020-25.

Packaging analysis*: The section maps the evolution of packaging for the global and all five regional markets. The analysis delves into the performance of various packaging parameters: packaging material, packaging type, closure type, and outer type.

Other sector metrics: The section provides topline statistics and analysis for different alternate datasets, such as patent filings, job analytics, and deals in the ice cream sector in 2025.

Reasons to Buy

• Manufacturers and retailers seek latest information on how the market is evolving to formulate their sales and marketing strategies. There is also demand for authentic market data with a high level of detail. This report has been created to provide its readers with up-to-date information and analysis to uncover emerging opportunities of growth within the sector in the region.
• The report provides a detailed analysis of the countries in the region, covering the key challenges, competitive landscape and demographic analysis, that can help companies gain insight into the country specific nuances.
• The analysts have also placed a significant emphasis on the key trends that drive consumer choice and the future opportunities that can be explored in the region, than can help companies in revenue expansion.
• To gain competitive intelligence about leading brands in the sector in the region with information about their market share and growth rates.