Check mate: Cognex's Checker 4G machine vision system.

Revenues in the global machine vision market grew more than 10 percent during 2011 to a total value of nearly $2.9 billion, according to a study by market analyst IMS Research (which was recently acquired by IHS Inc., NYSE:IHS). But in the report, entitled World Market for Machine Vision – 2012 Edition IMS Research goes on to explain the reasons why this level of growth is unlikely to be sustained during the forecast to 2016.

“The main reason for the restricted growth of this industry is considered to be instability in many economies around the world, particularly those countries in the eurozone,” commented John Morse, author of the report.

Morse continued: “The machine vision industry recovered well after the last recession as shown by the results of IMS Research’s free quarterly market tracker. However, revenue growth showed signs of slowing in the second half of 2011. Many manufacturers have expressed caution about growth in 2012 and beyond.”

The views of manufacturers echoed the findings of other recent IMS Research reports that present lower revenue forecasts than in previous editions. Generally, growth over the next five years will be less than previously forecast.

“However, it is not all bad news,” added Morse. “Despite manufacturing estimated to account for more than 80 percent of machine vision revenues, there is a trend towards machine vision products being used outside the manufacturing environment. For example: high quality security & surveillance, traffic monitoring & control and medical.”

To read more: http://optics.org/news/3/7/26