Just before Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to talk with Adrian Lloyd, CEO of Interact Analysis. Interact is a new market research and intelligence company composed of industry veterans of other firms. The company researchers perform many more interviews than the industry norm combining with deep regional manufacturing data in order to achieve better and more granular results.
Company CEOs provided insight to me years ago about the accuracy (or lack) of many market analyses. I’m always in search of better information. We’ll try this one.
Interact has just released two reports—low voltage AC drives and motion control.
2019 low voltage AC motor drives report from Interact Analysis
- Decentralized and motor mounted drives to show the strongest growth
- Danfoss overtook Siemens in 2018 to be number 1 drives supplier to the EMEA region
- Cabinet mounted general purpose drives have largest percentage of sales by product type
The research shows that growth in the intralogistics and materials handling sector has led to increased demand for decentralised and motor mounted drives, leading them to show the strongest growth over the five-year forecast period out of all seven product types covered. Cabinet mounted general purpose drives account for nearly half of drive sales globally, but also represent the slowest growing product type.
Meanwhile, from a regional perspective, although ABB is the number 1 drives supplier on a global basis, Danfoss has overtaken Siemens to be number 1 in EMEA. The Americas is predicted to be the fastest growing drives market for 2019, while the market in EMEA is shrinking, and China continues to occupy the largest share of the market (43% by unit shipments in 2019).
Interact Analysis has pioneered a new forecasting approach that gives an unprecedented level of detail. For example, users could choose to view anticipated demand for drives under 2.2 kW in the Indian packaging market. This is possible because the report is underpinned by 12 years of data on industrial production (the value of goods produced) and machinery production (the value of the machines used to produce goods). This information comes from Interact Analysis’s Manufacturing Industry Output Tracker – a big data tool that aggregates national manufacturing surveys from all major manufacturing economies in a set of over 1.2 million datapoints.
Lloyd says of this report: “In 2018 average drive prices fell by 2.7% compared with 2017, and we expect this trend to continue. To compound this, 2019 is experiencing a slowdown in the market. Yet the drives industry has reason for positivity. And not just because we expect the market to rebound in 2020.
“The world is becoming increasingly automated – in fact it is becoming rare to open a national daily newspaper and not read something about how automation is impacting the economy. Automation growth sectors, such as eCommerce warehouses, are creating vast new opportunities for drives. In the longer run, it is very positive for drives manufacturers that our research shows drives buyers increasingly see drives as the front line of predictive maintenance and industrial IoT.
“Most drives reports model industry dynamics by simply comparing the growth of the drives market with the growth of the entire manufacturing sector. Ours is different. Interact Analysis’s Manufacturing Industry Output tracker compares the value of goods produced with the value of machines used to produce goods to give a whole range of fresh new insights unavailable in any other drives report.”
Motion Control Market to Exceed $15bn by 2023
New 2019 motion control market report from Interact Analysis reveals
- Despite a short-term dip in 2019, longer term forecasts predict solid growth
- Increased reliance on industrial robotics a significant contributor
- Growth rate to exceed that of global manufacturing production by 2020
Interact Analysis has released a new market report – Motion Controls – 2019 – pointing to strong growth over the next four years for motion control products.
Despite a small decline in 2019 (-3.8%) the report outlines how the market for motion control products will grow strongly, ultimately exceeding $15bn in 2023. Also noteworthy is the firm’s belief that the motion control market will outpace growth of global manufacturing production from 2020 onwards. The positive outlook holds true despite the torrid time currently facing machine tool vendors which, as the single largest consumer of motion control products, generated over a third of motion control revenues in 2018.
Interact Analysis points to several sectors which are helping to drive a more positive outlook for motion controls. These include food & beverage machinery, packaging machinery, robotics and material handling equipment, especially equipment for warehouse automation and intralogistics. Together these sectors generated just under a quarter of total motion control revenues in 2018 and are forecast to account for closer to 30% in 2023.
The report outlines further factors strengthening the outlook for motion control demand, including the trend for decentralization. Here higher-protection ratings are helping to advance the market for particular motion products. Although even combined the opportunity is small compared to the total (representing only 2.4% of the global market in 2018), the findings show that revenues for both products are projected to experience higher growth than the rest of the market, driving their combined value to exceed $500m in 2023.
Geographically, six regions – China, USA, Japan, Germany, Italy and South Korea – will continue to dominate market revenues. China, in particular, is expected to add significant revenues over the next four years, making it almost twice as big as the United States. In industry terms, sectors utilising metal cutting tools remain the largest in revenue terms, however the strongest overall growth during the forecast period came from mobile robots and industrial robots, which are the only ones forecast to experience growth in 2019 versus 2018.
Tim Dawson, research director for Interact Analysis and principal analyst of the motion controls report, said: “Although the motion control market may be considered fairly mature there are important trends impacting its future growth helping drive revenues at an above average rate for the long-term. Couple that with product releases from new vendors, plus expanding portfolios from existing ones; and the fundamentals for this industry appear very strong, even despite headwinds in certain key sectors.”
