Interpretation of Suzhou laser cutting machine market in 2015

In 2014, the industrial laser system accounted for 14% of the global machine tool sales, so there is no doubt that the healthy development of the world manufacturing industry means the health of the entire industrial laser industry. It is predicted that the consumption of machine tools will increase in the range of 5% - 7% in 2014, and the industrial laser system market is expected to be in this range.

In the industrial laser market, China's top priority is to reshape its economy to provide more domestic demand, reduce its dependence on exports and invest in capital intensive state-owned enterprises. Europe's manufacturing sector in the recession is beginning to show signs of recovery, even though Germany's manufacturing sector has been growing modestly. In North America, the U.S. market has become "colorful" with the improvement of the economy. In 2015, housing and housing strength grew, and the energy boom will last for at least the next three years. The BRICs are expected to boost the industrial laser market in 2014, but underperformed by the stagnation in Russia and Brazil and the slowdown in China and India. As for 2015, the International Monetary Fund drew public attention to the United States, India and the United Kingdom as the most likely areas for positive growth, while warning of increased global capital investment.

With the end of 2014, the overall sales of the industrial laser market for manufacturing industry exceeded $2.6 billion, an increase of 6% compared with the operating revenue in 2013. In 2014, fiber lasers used for material processing applications accounted for 29% of the total operating revenue of the global laser market, second only to the laser market in communication applications. The world's manufacturing industry is so unpredictable that laser is closely behind in the field of optoelectronics.

It is obvious that the impact of the continuous and strong growth of fiber lasers, on the premise of damaging the solid-state and CO2 laser market, has increased the share of the whole industrial laser market to 36%. As a revenue generating category, the fiber laser industry is a high-profile part of the annual market survey of industrial laser solutions.

As a power source, fiber laser is used in metal cutting, especially in plate cutting. The cost of the system is more than 650000 US dollars, and the operating revenue in 2014 is more than 1.3 billion US dollars. Combined with the revenue of high-power CO2 laser in similar applications, the investment of the whole capital equipment is close to 4 billion US dollars, which is one third of the sales of all industrial laser systems in 2014.

Also noteworthy in 2014 was the high-power diodes, which accounted for 13% of the total market share. This relatively novel market product is mainly used for online applications, such as brazing the top of automobiles and other metal parts. Quietly, this efficient laser carves out a niche market.

As a substitute of fiber laser in sheet metal processing, the cutting quality and speed of high brightness and high power direct diode laser are comparable to that of equal power fiber and disk laser. Although its sales volume is very small, its profit margin in 2014 is quite considerable.

As the fiber laser continues to penetrate into mature markets, such as the marking market, the sales of solid-state lasers have declined. The market of marking / engraving system with more than US $750 million is occupied by low-power fiber laser and sealed off CO2 laser respectively. The latter is quite safe for non-metallic engraving due to wavelength compatibility. The continuous solid-state laser revenue is the rapid acceptance of ultrafast lasers working in megawatt peak power state, picosecond and femtosecond pulse width, focusing on micro material processing applications, such as device processing for smart phones and tablets. Fiber lasers working in very short pulse width are competing for this market share, and some analysts speculate that micromachining may be the next growth point of these lasers. Some researches have set the market of ultrafast pulse laser at 450 million US dollars.

However, when it comes to the processing of micro materials, the strong growth in the field of laser additive manufacturing has contributed to the increase in the revenue of solid-state lasers and fiber lasers. Wallace associates said that am grew by more than 63% in 2013, with 37% of its revenue coming from 3D and am parts end products rather than prototypes. According to the survey on AM's aerospace supply, 27% of companies have used it, 10% of them are expected to use it in the next year, and 37% are expected to use it in the next five years. As the company challenges the "ultimate" laser processing of am, it will break through the waves.

In addition to laser cutting, large-scale material processing applications account for 25% of the operating revenue of high-power lasers. The leading market with 10% revenue growth is fiber laser and CO2 laser for welding applications, mainly in the automotive industry. Fiber laser suppliers expect welding to be a growing market in the next few years.

The industrial laser market in 2014 was summarized, with a year-on-year increase of 4% in marking, 14% in micro material processing and 8% in large material processing. Overall sales of materials processing increased by 6%.

As mentioned earlier, the forecast for industrial lasers will follow the same moderate growth trend of the global machine tool industry. After the G20 summit in Australia in November 2014, British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "the world economy has turned red.". The general consensus of the industrial laser and system suppliers interviewed is that the growth momentum of 2014 will continue in 2015, and the expected growth rate is about 5%. This is in line with many expert economic analysts' forecasts of slow international economic growth, most advanced, expanding and newly industrialized economies that reduce GDP.

This growth will again be led by fiber lasers, but at a slightly slower rate than in 2014. Fiber lasers are expected to continue to erode the market share of CO2 and long pulse solid-state lasers