Industrial automation market worth $306.2 billion by 2027: report

According to a new market research report by Meticulous Research, the industrial automation market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.3% from 2020 to 2027 to reach $306.2 billion by 2027 from $164.2 billion in 2020.

The report, with the very wordy title of ‘Industrial Automation Market by Component (Plant-level Controls, Enterprise-level Controls, Plant Instrumentation), Mode of Automation (Semi-automatic, Fully-automatic), and End User (Oil & Gas, Automotive, Food & Beverage, Chemicals & Materials) - Global Forecast to 2027’, says that the industrial automation market is growing rapidly due to the high adoption of automation solutions in the manufacturing, oil and gas, chemicals and materials, and pharmaceutical sectors — and is being boosted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rising investment in the transformation of conventional manufacturing facilities by installing digitised systems is a major factor driving the growth of the industrial automation market globally.

The automation providers witnessed a decline in revenues in 2020 due to the spread of COVID-19 and the limited operations of industries in the first two quarters. The application sectors in the industrial automation market have experienced various impacts from the pandemic and are expected to recover in the coming years. The severely hit industries include oil and gas, construction machinery, rubber and plastic machinery, and power generation. These industries will recover slowly and face high impact due to changing consumer patterns, low production and dependency on end markets. Some of the industries that experienced medium impact include mining, robotics, building technology, electronics, paper and pulp, and process industry equipment. These industries are expected to gain a speedy recovery due to their broad range of application markets. The least hit industries included agriculture machinery, food and beverage processing and packaging, and medical and scientific manufacturers as they offer essential goods globally. Additionally, local manufacturing facilities that were temporarily shut down in the first six months of 2020 resumed operations in the third quarter due to the removal of lockdowns and the need for economic growth.

The industrial sector faced a severe impact of the pandemic due to limited consumption of high-cost products and consumer need for purchasing essential goods and services. During the nationwide lockdowns, consumers restricted their purchases of consumer goods, high-cost electronics, textiles, automobiles and machinery, which impacted the major application sectors in the industrial automation market. With the steady reopening of countries and stability in consumer lifestyles, the spending on these commodities is expected to increase, resulting in the demand for automation solutions over the coming years. The industry is, however, expected to gain pace in 2021. Thus, the need to limit human contact for curbing the further spread of COVID-19 is projected to result in the implementation of industrial automation systems across various end-user facilities globally.

Based on component, the overall industrial automation market is segmented into enterprise-level controls, plant instrumentation and plant-level controls. In 2020, the enterprise-level controls segment commanded the largest share of the overall industrial automation market. The high share of this segment is mainly attributed to the benefits of enterprise management with the implementation of PLM, ERP and MES solutions at enterprise levels. The PLM solution promotes cross-team collaboration across departments such as innovation, R&D, regulatory compliance, quality and packaging. It enables cross-functional management of product development introduction, leveraging portfolio management capabilities to deliver visibility and optimise results across the product development phase. These systems aid companies to keep and manage records of the organisation’s life cycle, further resulting in huge cost savings.

The Asia Pacific region dominated the global industrial automation market in 2020, followed by Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. The high share of Asia Pacific is due to the presence of large-scale industries and manufacturing sectors in these regions. The Asian countries, including China and Japan, are the top manufacturers and consumers of industrial robots, sensors and machine vision systems which promote their growth rapidly. Additionally, India, China and South Korea have robust automotive, consumer goods, electronics and pharmaceuticals manufacturing sectors.

A sample of the report can be accessed here.

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