Laser technology has a wide range of applications and has extended to all aspects of industry and even people’s life. The downstream application market of the laser industry can be divided into six major market segments, namely material processing and communications field, communications and optical storage market, scientific research and military market, medical and beauty market, instrumentation and sensor market, and entertainment, display, and printing market.
Material processing and lithography market are still the main application of the laser industry in 2020
In 2020, the material processing and lithography market remain the main application of the laser industry, accounting for nearly 40%.
The market size of materials processing and lithography reaches 6.288 billion U.S. dollars.
Laser processing technology is a processing technology that uses the characteristics of the interaction between the laser beam and the substance to cut, weld, surface treatment, perforate, mark and micromachining materials (including metals and non-metals). As an advanced manufacturing technology, laser processing has been widely used in important sectors of the national economy such as automobiles, electronics, electrical appliances, aviation, metallurgy, and machinery manufacturing. It has played an increasingly important role in improving product quality, labor productivity, automation, pollution-free, and reducing material consumption.
At the beginning of 2020, the laser material processing market continued to be negatively affected by the trade war between the United States and China. At the same time, the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic caused China to close factories, causing laser companies’ revenue to drop by 80% in the first quarter of 2020. Laser companies in the United States and Europe were less affected, but their revenues still fell during the same period.
According to data released by Laser Focus World, material processing and lithography are still the main applications of the laser industry in 2020, accounting for nearly 40%, with a market size of 6.288 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, the revenue of the North American market declined slightly. After China had effectively controlled the epidemic, the material processing laser company showed strong revenue growth in 2020.
Global laser communication and optical storage market reaches 3.895 billion U.S. dollars
Optical fiber communication is a modern communication technology that uses laser as the information carrier and optical fiber as the physical basis. Due to the characteristics of of optical fiber such as wide frequency band, low attenuation, anti-interference, and corrosion resistance, optical fiber communication has achieved rapid growth in the past 30 years since its inception, and gradually formed a communication pattern with fiber optic communication as the main, microwave and satellite communication as the supplementary. At present, with the development of broadband applications, the 1-2M access capabilities that traditional ADSL and Cable can provide no longer meet the needs of social development and mass consumption, and “light into copper” has become an inevitable choice.
The communications laser market is one of the few markets benefiting from the COVID-19 epidemic, mainly due to the demand for Internet and voice communication services boosted by employees working from home. According to data released by Laser Focus World, the proportion of communications and optical storage in the laser application market was 24% in 2020, and the market size reached 3.898 billion US dollars.
Global Laser Medical and Aesthetic Market Size Drops to $935 Million
In the medical field, the application of lasers is becoming increasingly popular: from ophthalmology (such as myopia correction, retinal repair, etc.), surgery (laser scalpel), to internal medicine, gynecology, otolaryngology, cardiovascular, dermatology, etc., have become the applicable areas of laser medical devices. On average, 10-15% of surgical procedures performed in developed countries use laser surgical instruments to replace traditional scalpels or other surgical instruments.
According to data released by Laser Focus World, the market size of laser medical and aesthetic market in 2020 in the laser application market share of 6%, the market size fell to $935 million.
Compared to the 2019 market size of laser application, the global laser medical and aesthetic market is the industry most affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, down 25% year-on-year; instrumentation and sensors market has continued to grow strongly in recent years, and the current COVID-19 epidemic has not slowed the growth of laser revenue in this area.
