VISION 2024: VDMA declares German machine vision industry will ‘decline by 10%’

09 Oct 2024

Association’s MV department expects national decline in sales for image processing sector in 2024.

Germany’s VDMA Machine Vision department announced on Tuesday, October 8th, the opening day of the VISION expo in Stuttgart, that it expects to see “a nominal decline in sales of 10 percent for the image processing industry in Germany this year”.

This forecast means that the earnings outlook is clouding over compared to the agency’s April forecast (down by 3 percent). No change in the trend is expected for 2025. On the upside the VDMA statement added: “The industry is expecting new impetus from the world’s leading trade fair VISION”.

“The manufacturing industry is the most important customer for the machine vision industry, with a market share of 71 percent for systems and 62 percent for components,” said Mark Williamson, Chairman of the VDMA Machine Vision Division.

“According to official statistics, the order backlog of our largest customer industry in Germany in July 2024 was 4.3 percent lower than in the same month last year, adjusted for calendar effects. This will have a short-term dampening effect on demand for machine vision products. In the medium to long term, however, the industry’s success story as a key technology in automation will continue,” Williamson added.

New sales areas

The market environment for image processing is benefiting overall from a broad automation trend. This applies both to the manufacturing industry and to sectors that do not work in traditional manufacturing.

The VDMA stated that “demand for machine vision systems outside the manufacturing industry rose by 5 percent to a market share of 29 percent in 2023. The three most important areas of application here are: intelligent traffic systems, with a sales share of 61 percent, logistics and mail sorting (20 percent) and medical devices (7 percent)”.

The group’s analysis continued, “With a sales share of 38 percent, demand for machine vision components outside the manufacturing industry is even greater than for systems. Thirty-four percent of component sales are attributable to medical devices, followed by intelligent transport systems (18 percent) and logistics and mail sorting (12 percent)”.

Top applications by sales

The VDMA added that with a share of 34 percent, “inspection applications are the strongest sales segment for image processing systems”. These include, for example, applications for quality control, printing or surface inspection systems. Applications for robotics and automated assembly follow with a sales share of 23 percent and object recognition with 16 percent.

Among technology trends, the use of artificial intelligence has now become an important sales driver: according to the VDMA survey “Machine Vision in Europe”, the share of sales of products in which AI is used as a key solution component rose to 19 percent in 2023. More than two-thirds of respondents now state that AI is a driving force for the current and future image processing business, the survey states.

This week in Stuttgart, the complete spectrum of image processing technology has been presented at VISION. Trend topics such as artificial intelligence, hyperspectral imaging, embedded vision or 3D have been presented and discussed by experts.

The trade fair has been taking place with a record number of exhibitors: around 500 exhibiting companies from Germany and worldwide are showing their new developments and innovations to an international audience for three days, through Thursday.