Drives now a two-track market
8 Feb 2010
Austin, Texas – The global economic slowdown has impacted demand for drives in some industries much harder than in others, according to a market study by IMS Research. Smaller declines have been experienced by the renewable energy, food, beverage & tobacco, and commercial HVAC sectors are expected to help offset significant decreases in the semiconductor, shipbuilding & marine, and machine tool industries.
“There are two distinct tiers of industries that have been affected by the economic downturn. Industry sectors that have links to population growth and increased urbanization, such as food, beverage & tobacco and utilities, have held up relatively well during the recession, while those tied to machine building have suffered greatl,” explained Jenalea Howell, an IMS analyst.
Worldwide demand for low voltage AC & DC motor drives experienced robust growth in 2008, with sales up 14.6% over 2007 levels, IMS estimated. Data from motor drive suppliers indicated positive growth through the third quarter of 2008 was fuelled by industry sectors such as oil & gas, mining, and commercial HVAC. The feedback valued the motor drives sales at nearly $11 billion in 2008 with more than 15 million drive units shipped during the year.
Starting in Q408 and continuing through 2009, many segments of the market slowed significantly due to the global recession. As a result, IMS forecast the worldwide market for motor drives to contract almost 16% in 2009 in terms of revenues, before returning to positive growth in 2010.
IMS listed several reasons behind the contraction in 2009, including declines in regional GDP and significant contractions in machinery production levels. Ongoing problems with capital lending are also expected to contribute to the decline of the market in 2009.
Due to the heavy concentration of machine builders in Western Europe, the EMEA motor drives market remains the largest regional market, accounting for nearly 45% of total market revenues in 2008. The full effects of the economic downturn in the EMEA region were delayed until the first quarter of the year, resulting in a projected market contraction of 25.2% in 2009.
The Americas region, accounting for more than 20% of total market revenues in 2008, also represents a sizeable percentage of the global motor drives market. The Americas drives market is forecast to contract by 19.2% in revenue terms in 2009, as the earlier impacts of the downturn in the region are predicted to result in a faster recovery than in the EMEA drives market.
The Japanese drives market is projected to be impacted the most severely due to global economic conditions; revenues are forecast to decrease by about 27% in 2009 – due to a large decrease in the industrial machinery exports that use much of the motor drives sold in the region. In Asia Pacific, however, the drives market is expected to stay robust, with continued demand from the market in China – IMS predicts a 2.9% revenue growth during 2009 for the entire Asia Pacific drives market.
