Less is known about the machine-vision market in the Asia-Pacific region than the markets in Europe or North America. This was one of the reasons IMS Research felt it was important to produce a market analysis dedicated to this region. The results proved to be very interesting, since the Asia-Pacific market is quite different from the markets in Europe and North America, which share many characteristics not only in structure but also in growth rates.
The estimated market growth from 2004 to 2009 in the Asia-Pacific region is best described as positive and steady and very healthy compared with that for Europe (see Fig. 1). It will come as no surprise that most of this growth is coming from outside Japan, which is currently predicted by international economic forecasters to experience low GDP and industrial production growth over the next few years. Although Japan has high volume sales of machine-vision products, it is countries such as China, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan that are forecast to drive machine-vision hardware growth in revenue, as well as volume terms.
The average growth of the machine-vision hardware market in the Asia-Pacific region is healthy, but some product areas are healthier than others (see Fig. 2). "Smart" products are predicted to top the growth league. Such products, along with compact vision systems, are expected to impact the numbers of traditional machine-vision cameras that are sold, causing a lower growth rate for these products than might otherwise be expected.
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