Pressure transmitter market to reach $1.5 billion

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 21, 2003

Reliability is one of the most important factors that will influence the continued growth of the pressure transmitter market.

Reliability is one of the most important factors that will influence the continued growth of the pressure transmitter market.

Worldwide, this market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.9% over the next five years.

The market was $1274 million in 2002 and is forecast to be over $1471 million in 2007, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study entitled "Pressure transmitter worldwide outlook".

Pressure transmitter performance continues to improve as reliability, accuracy, long-term drift, and overrange protection keep getting better - particularly with the newer high performance versions.

"A new class of high-performance transmitter is emerging which ARC is qualifying as transmitters having an accuracy specification of +/-0.5% or better", said ARC Analyst Paula Hollywood, the principal author of the study.

She continued: "For users, the increased reliability of these transmitters will reduce maintenance costs and increase process up-time".

How long is the lifetime of a transmitter? While suppliers are currently offering lifetime warranties on high-end, high-performance transmitters, it is only a matter of time before such warranties filter down to lower end transmitters.

It is expected that the technological advancements only found in today's high-end transmitters will be common in low-end versions in the future making offers of limited lifetime warranties commonplace.

As the traditional differentiator between pressure transducers and transmitters becomes more blurred, one can no longer tell one from the other by sight alone.

Pricing of such devices is comparable too.

ARC expects a hybrid device configuration with either analogue or voltage output will actually be preferred as the process industry moves towards fieldbus.

Product features such as local displays and programming interfaces will be embedded in the digital protocol and drastically reduce packaging costs and, in turn, selling price.

Because these transmitters are much smaller in size, they can be used in applications where traditional transmitters are too large.

For example, these smaller devices are suitable for use in automobiles or in medical equipment.

Pressure transmitter performance continues to improve.

Attributes such as accuracy, reliability, long-term drift, and over range protection keep getting better particularly in the newer high performance versions.

New market drivers such as asset management, online analytics, and the need for application solutions will be the factors influencing users to replace or upgrade their existing transmitters.

This will be particularly important in the more developed regions of North America and Europe that are now essentially MRO markets - especially in these trying economic times where capital expenditures are limited.