Machine Vision Market Slows Down in 1st Quarter of 2023

Sales in the machine vision sector declined during the first quarter of 2023, and most component and system manufacturers predict either flat or continued decreases over the next six months.

Those were the primary takeaways of a market update presented by the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) at the Automate 2023 conference, which occurred May 22-25 in Detroit, MI, USA.

Overall, sales of machine vision components—including cameras, software, and lighting—declined 12.4% in the first quarter of 2023, compared with the first quarter in 2022. Manufacturers of cameras experienced the sharpest declines: from $70.92 million in the first quarter of 2022 to $57.20 million in the same quarter of 2023. Lighting declined from $20.51 million to $19.94 million and imaging boards declined from $8.87 million to $8.03 million.

There were some bright spots. Manufacturers of optics ($11.32 million in 2023, compared with $11.04 million) and software ($7.80 million in 2023, compared with $7.47 million) saw increases in sales in the first quarter of 2023, compared with 2022.

Manufacturers of turnkey machine vision systems and smart cameras did not fare as well. Sales of turnkey systems declined from $502.05 million in the first quarter in 2022 to $484.25 million in the first quarter of 2023, while revenues for smart cameras dropped from $175.97 million to $139.81 million.

Forecast for Next Six Months

A3 also fields quarterly surveys of machine vision component and system manufacturers to ask about their expectations for sales during the upcoming six months. In the first quarter of 2023, 54% of those surveyed said they expect sales in the components market to remain flat, while 20% expect sales to decline and 26% expect sales to increase. For turnkey machine vision systems, including smart cameras, 36% of those surveyed expect sales to remain flat, 51% expect a decline, and 13% expect an increase in sales.  

Overall, manufacturers queried during the first quarter of 2023 were somewhat more pessimistic than a similar pool of respondents during the fourth quarter of 2022. At that point, 34% expected flat sales of machine vision components, 27% expected a decline and 39% expected an increase.  For systems, 58% predicted flat sales, 27% expected a decline and 15% expected an increase.

However, Alex Shikany, vice president of membership and business intelligence at A3, told the audience at Automate that it’s important to view these numbers in the context of overall trends.  He explained that 2022 was a record year for machine vision sales, which reached $3.116 billion, a 3% increase compared with 2022.  Machine vision sales have been increasing over time, too. For example, sales totaled $2.27 billion in 2014.

“We are currently experiencing the back half of the (economic) cycle right now,” he says, noting that sales started out with “a bang” in 2022 but then declined throughout the year. However, “when you look at the historic levels of orders, it is still an amazing time for machine vision,” he says.