North American sales of machine vision systems and components grew 16 per cent to $1.2 billion in the first half of 2015, the market’s highest first half total in history, according to new statistics issued by AIA, the industry’s trade group.
The figures follow the trend seen in Europe, with the VDMA predicting 11 per cent growth in the European machine vision market for 2015.
In North America, the machine vision systems category saw a year-over-year increase of 18 per cent to $1.0 billion in the first half of 2015. Machine vision systems include smart cameras and application specific machine vision (ASMV) systems. Smart cameras expanded by 13 per cent to $151.3 million, while ASMV systems increased 19 per cent to $892.3 million in the first half of the year.
Similarly, machine vision components had a strong half in North America with 6 per cent growth to $164.7 million. The leading product categories within machine vision components in terms of growth were lighting (20 per cent), software (8 per cent), and imaging boards (8 per cent).
‘We’re happy to see the machine vision market continue its expansion in 2015,’ said AIA president Jeff Burnstein. ‘We’re seeing a wide variety of companies in all industries realise the benefits of implementing machine vision in their operations.’
‘Industry experts are optimistic for growth in machine vision cameras, software, and imaging boards in the next six months,’ said Alex Shikany, AIA’s director of market analysis. ‘However, experts expect machine vision systems to remain flat in the next two quarters.’
Despite the record first half performance, the market experienced a slight slowdown during the second quarter of 2015. Over the last four consecutive quarters, the average growth for the machine vision market in North America has been 18 per cent, which is notably higher than the market’s second quarter growth of 10 per cent.
‘Machine vision, like many other manufacturing markets, is cyclical in nature,’ Shikany added. ‘The market grew 25 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2014, and followed with a 22 per cent increase in the first quarter of 2015. This is in contrast to its average quarterly growth rate of 16 per cent since the first quarter of 2010. A cyclical normalisation like this is something we’ve seen in the past, and typically follows a period of high, sustained performance.’
The technology that is driving the market’s record performance will be on display at AIA’s two autumn events: the first Canadian Machine Vision Conference in Ottawa, 5-7 October, and the Vision in Life Sciences Conference in San Diego, 17-19 November.
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