Growing regions boost global PLC market

An ARC Advisory Group product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 8, 2004

The worldwide market for programmable logic controllers is surging due to fast growing regions and expanding applications areas outside of manufacturing.

The worldwide market for programmable logic controllers (PLCs) is surging due to fast growing regions and expanding applications areas outside of manufacturing.

The market for PLCs is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.6% over the next five years in spite of declining prices.

The market was over $6 billion in 2003 and is forecasted to reach over $7.5 billion in 2008, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.

"The term 'PLC' no longer stands only for logic control and programmability".

"Communications capabilities, large memories, and fast CPUs have turned the PLC into a universal automation component that fits all applications".

"A new paradigm, the programmable automation controller (PAC), is evolving, which is set to change the face of industrial automation at the controller level", according to Senior Analyst Himanshu Shah, co-author of ARC's "Programmable logic controller worldwide outlook".

Nano PLCs are finding new ways to address the relay replacement market, and micro PLCs are riding on the recovery in the machine tool market.

Small and large PLCs are moving swiftly towards conquering simple DCS and Scada applications.

Users prefer PLC-based, application-specific solutions because the PLC is a standard almost off-the-shelf, known-to-be-reliable automation component.

Users generally have a good access to skilled support personnel because a huge talent pool exists for PLC programming.

Although PC-based controls, for a time, threatened the existence of the PLC, the threat has passed.

PLCs today contain PC-based technologies to the extent that these technologies contribute to the PLC's functionality.

China, Eastern Europe and Russia, India and Brazil are rapidly developed regions and now have populations that demand automobiles, processed food and beverages, infrastructure facilities, and appliances.

All industry sectors are growing in response to the domestic demands in these regions.

Parts of Eastern Europe are growing as rapidly as China.

With many of the countries having joined the European Union in April 2004, the prospects of easier trade signal a major opportunity for the PLC market.

PLCs have now become so much of a commodity that suppliers of PLCs often do not know the end use of the nano- and micro-PLCs that they sell through distributors.

This market study identifies several applications where PLCs are used outside of discrete manufacturing.

The PLC market is mature and, while changes in market share are not dramatic, it is evident that larger suppliers have been gradually increasing their monopolisation of this market.

This market study outlines how the top seven suppliers increased their share of the market and improved their regional dominance.

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