2019 global laser market review and 2020 forecast: the most turbulent era of the laser market

The global economy experienced its lowest growth in ten years in 2019, and global economic growth slowed to 2.3%. Global lasers have also experienced rapid growth in 2017, and the market growth rate continued to slow in 2018 and 2019. The performance of the four major listed laser leading companies in the world declined in 2019:

In 2019, IPG achieved revenue of US$1.3146 billion, down 10% year-on-year;

In 2019, the revenue of TRUMPF Laser Technology was 1.38 billion euros, a year-on-year decrease of 2.13%;

Relevant sales in 2019 reached 1.431 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 24.8%;

In 2019, Han's laser operating revenue was 9.563 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.30%.

Although the material processing laser market has fallen sharply in 2019, the sensor, medical, military, lithography machine and other markets have ushered in a moment of rapid development. While global manufacturers are eager for 5G to bring new market increments in 2020, the "Black Swan" global COVID-19 pandemic has hit the global economy, and the COVID-19 epidemic has spread rapidly in China, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the United States, and South America. In the future, the global epidemic has intensified. As of June 5, the cumulative number of COVID-19 diagnoses reached 6.72 million, and the number of deaths reached 393,600. 2020 will undoubtedly become the most turbulent and difficult year for the global laser market.

2019 global laser market review

In 2019, the main downstream application areas of lasers such as automobiles and consumer electronics will face periodic adjustments in the industry. In the automotive market, from the perspective of world sales of major country representatives, world auto sales fell by 1% in 2018, falling into negative annual growth for the first time since 2010, while global auto sales in 2019 decreased by 3% year-on-year to 90.32 million units. In the consumer electronics market, according to the data report of the international data company IDC (Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker), global smartphone shipments in 2019 were 1.371 billion units, a year-on-year decrease of 2.3%. As the downstream automotive, consumer electronics and other industries further reduce the demand for laser equipment, resulting in a fierce competition in the global laser market and laser equipment market, the market size of the global laser market in 2019 will reach approximately US$15.13 billion, with a year-on-year growth rate of 1.3%. In comparison, the growth rate in 2018 was 8.5%, and the growth rate in 2017 was 19.1%.

Figure 1 Global laser market size and growth from 2015 to 2019

2019 global laser market review and 2020 forecast: the most turbulent era of the laser market

Source: Strategies Unlimited, OFweek Industrial Research Institute

Material processing and lithography, communication and storage are still the main global laser application markets. In 2019, lasers accounted for 44.3% of the material processing and lithography application market. Communication and storage are the second largest application market, reaching 26.8%, followed by It is 9.3%, 7.5% and 7.4% in scientific research and military fields, medical and beauty fields, instruments and sensors, respectively.

Figure 2 Application structure of the global laser market in 2019

2019 global laser market review and 2020 forecast: the most turbulent era of the laser market

Source: Strategies Unlimited, OFweek Industrial Research Institute

Material processing and lithography:

In 2019, due to the declining demand in the downstream market for material processing, intensified competition in the industrial laser market, and the average price of lasers with China as the main body fell by more than 20%, at the same time, Sino-US trade and tariff frictions have also affected some companies' normal procurement plans for laser equipment. , Leading to a decline in the application of lasers in the material processing market in 2019.

2019 is a year of rapid development of the lithography market. The semiconductor market dominated by mobile chips, memory chips, artificial intelligence chips, and communication chips has increased the demand for the lithography machine market. In 2019, ASML's revenue from the world's largest lithography machine maker reached 11.82 billion euros, an increase of 8% year-on-year. The order volume of EUV lithography machines reached 6.2 billion euros in the year. A total of 26 EUV lithography machines were shipped, compared with 2018. The annual number of 18 units has increased significantly, which has increased the revenue share of EUV lithography machines from 23% to 31%. TRUMPF mainly provides lasers for lithography machines for ASML. These lasers are integrated into the lithography system and use extreme ultraviolet radiation to etch chips. In 2019, TRUMPF's sales revenue from this business increased from 18 million euros in 260 million. By 190 million euros in 19 years, an increase of 48%.

Communication and optical storage:

In the communications application market, most of the 4G cellular network deployment has been completed in 2017 and 2018. 5G is still in the first year of construction in 2019. The market demand is relatively small, resulting in a decline in laser revenue from the communications market. In the optical storage market, the application prospects of lasers continue to be bleak, sales of DVD, CD and Blu-ray media continue to decline, and more cloud-based and streaming media solutions are replacing the demand for large-capacity local storage.

Research and military:

In 2019, global spending on lasers for scientific research increased slightly. Although the US government has reduced spending on lasers for scientific research, the increase in Chinese government spending in this area offset the decrease in US spending. Despite the economic slowdown in the European market, expenditures for research lasers in 2019 are basically the same as the previous year. In 2019, the total military expenditure in the world reached as much as 19,200 US dollars, an increase of 3.6% compared with last year, which was the highest military expenditure in 10 years. This is due to the intensified competition among major powers, such as nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, satellite weapons, hypersonic weapons, The rapid development of new military technologies such as directed energy laser weapons and the continuous wars from Ukraine, Syria to Libya have also stimulated people's nerves. In November 2019, the US Army Office of Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technology (RCCTO) sponsored the High Energy Laser Scaling Program (HELSI) contract issued by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and completed the key design work in support of IFPC-HEL. On November 25th, Lockheed Martin and Aculight won the OSD HELSI contract to support the demonstration of an independent 300kW class HEL system. The company is one of the three high-energy laser manufacturers participating in the OSD-led initiative, which aims to develop and laboratory test 300 kW lasers in FY22, and laser weapon applications in the military market are increasing on a large scale.

Medicine and Aesthetics:

The medical and cosmetic market includes all lasers used in ophthalmology (including refractive surgery and photocoagulation), surgery, dentistry, treatment, skin, hair removal and other cosmetic applications. At present, the global population aging trend is obvious, and countries are increasingly investing in the medical field. After the medical and cosmetic laser market has achieved revenue growth of more than 10% for several consecutive years, the market has slowed down in 2019, and revenue growth has slowed down. To 6.7%, of course, this is still a very considerable growth rate in 2019. The revenue of this market segment mainly comes from four major application areas: dentistry, beauty, ophthalmology and surgery.

Instruments and sensors:

Lidar is an area of rapid growth in the instrumentation and sensor market. The global lidar market in 2019 has a size of US$844 million, a year-on-year increase of more than 30%. Lidar can not only be used in autonomous vehicles, but also in commercial vehicles (such as Audi A8), geographic mapping, drone navigation and building construction. The price of lidar is falling rapidly, which makes the technology expected to be applied to more fields.

Global laser market forecast in 2020

Not long ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the April 2020 "World Economic Outlook" report on the official website, saying that the new crown epidemic will seriously affect economic growth in all regions of the world. The IMF has made the latest predictions of the GDP growth rate of all countries and economies in 2020. Among them, the United States is -5.9%, the euro zone is -7.5%, China is 1.2%, and India is 1.9%. In 2020, the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is expected to affect major economies in the world, companies will stop working, logistics/supply chains will stagnate, and global trade will be hit hard.

On the whole, the global economic adjustment period will inevitably lead to a continuous weakening of economic growth momentum. The recovery of the manufacturing industry and investment fields has encountered bottlenecks. Enterprises and households continue to suppress long-term expenditures. The demand for investment and durable consumer goods continues to be depressed. International trade growth has been suppressed. The internal and external demands faced by the economy are both weak, and the overall global market demand for lasers will also be affected.

In the first quarter of 2020, the operating income of China's major laser companies was greatly affected by the epidemic. In the first quarter of 2020, it was affected by the new coronary pneumonia epidemic. Reke's laser revenue decreased by 66.05% year-on-year to 135 million yuan; Han's laser revenue was 1.51 billion yuan, year-on-year Down 28.96%. Overseas epidemic outbreak in the second quarter of 2020, the production and supply chain of global laser manufacturers such as IPG, TRUMPF, and coherence have been stagnant for too long. Due to the limitation of the supply chain, the delivery has been delayed. Most enterprise investment plans are expected to be further extended. The size of the global laser market will decline by more than 10%, and the market size is only US$13.6 billion. At the same time, there are still many uncertainties in the overseas epidemic. If the epidemic of major countries in the world is still not controlled by the end of July or the second wave of the epidemic is affected in winter, the global laser market will decline further. We will usher in a global laser in 2020 The most turbulent times.