Report finds steep drop in North American machine-vision market

JULY 6, 2009—According to a report by Vision Systems International (Yardley, PA, USA; www.vision1.com), the first quarter of 2009 witnessed the largest-ever year-on-year decline in the North American machine-vision market--approximately 41%. Nello Zuech, president of the company, said that the economy and associated drop in capital spending throughout all manufacturing industries accounted for the decline.

This factor was especially evident in the decline in semiconductor equipment spending, which remains the largest consumer of machine vision components and systems. North American machine-vision market revenues declined 26% between the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009.

The North American machine-vision industry revenues from worldwide sales of North American companies declined somewhat more year-over-year--43%. Zuech says this clearly reflects a slump in capital spending throughout the industrial world.

-- Posted by Vision Systems Design, www.vision-systems.com