IMS Research revealed in its quarterly tracker that market growth in Asia Pacific from 2010 to 2011 was only 8.5%, which was far less than the EMEA or the Americas over that same time span.

Source: IMS Research (IHS Inc.)

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IMS Research, recently acquired by IHS Inc., revealed in its quarterly tracker of the machine-vision market that from 2010 to 2011 the market in Asia Pacific grew significantly less than in EMEA or the Americas.

The tracker takes published as well as submitted data from leading suppliers to the market to calculate the overall effect in revenues; they showed that the estimated worldwide growth from 2010 to 2011 was 12.8%; in EMEA and the Americas it was 16.8% and 16.1%, respectively, but Asia Pacific was much less at 8.5%.

"This result is contrary to what might be expected," commented John Morse, senior market analyst, IMS Research. "I have been tracking this market on a quarterly basis since 2006 and always found Asia to be leading the charge in growth terms."

Morse continued, “Over a third of the machine-vision business in Asia Pacific is in Japan (included in Asia Pacific in the tracker). Most manufacturers questioned believe that the slower economic growth in Japan, exacerbated by the tsunami and subsequent infrastructure problems, resulted in the low growth figure for the whole region.

"However, research for the current report on the world market for machine vision has revealed that the remainder of the Asia Pacific market, led by China, South Korea and Taiwan, has grown faster than either the EMEA or the American market."

The machine-vision market tracker showed that business during the first half of 2011 was very buoyant, but tailed off somewhat during the third and fourth quarters. Morse added finally, "I am very interested to see how 2012 pans out, as there are very mixed views among manufacturers at present."