Europe CMOS Industrial Cameras Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Type (Area Scan Camera, Line Scan Camera), By Applications (Industry, Medical and Life Sciences, ITS (Intelligent Transportation System), Others) and By Country(U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Nordic, Benelux, Rest of Europ) Forecasts, 2024-2032

Market Overview

The Europe CMOS Industrial Cameras market size is anticipated to attain a significant CAGR of 13.0% during the forecast period 2020-2027.

The European market size of CMOS Industrial Cameras is estimated to reach the value of USD 784 million by the end of 2019. Complementary Metal Oxide Semi-Conductor (CMOS) Industrial Cameras are the type of cameras that are designed to withstand the demand for adverse industrial conditions. The CMOS technology has undergone a significant upgrade in recent years, surpassing charge-coupled devices (CCD) technology that offers a wide range of benefits. This includes high speed, high resolution, low power consumption, strong dynamic performance, improved quantum efficiency, noise performance, color concept, and performance ratio.

CMOS industrial cameras are ideal for manufacturing, medical, transportation, aerospace, scientific, and others. Advancement in CMOS technology and demand from high volume users such as the automotive sector is the propelling factors for the growth of the CMOS industrial camera market.

The overall CMOS camera market is highly dominated by consumer applications, notably smartphones, PCs, and tablets. According to industry experts, more than 75% of CMOS cameras application are generated through consumer applications. The rest of the CMOS application is generated through Industrial applications.

The industrial application includes factory automation, in-vehicle applications, and healthcare imaging applications, traffic monitoring systems, and many more. Moreover, the above application has been consolidated into manufacturing, the intelligent transportation system (ITS), medical and life sciences, and other applications.

Market Dynamics

Increased Adoption Rate of Industry 4.0

Digitization is the lifeblood of manufacturing industries, as every business regardless of its size is seeking to maximize its productivity. As economies undergo revenue generation issues, reducing costs poses one of the critical concerns for every manufacturer. To address and find a remedy, manufacturers of all sizes are gradually inclining toward Industry 4.0 that entails the adoption of digital technologies, fast implementation of technologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, among others. As a result, industrial cameras are witnessing higher demand for web-based material inspection such as plastic or paper manufacturing, smart control system, automated machines, assembly inspection, among others.

Collaborations among various giant manufacturers across all industrial sector to form a platform that focuses on the adoption of Industry 4.0 is also adding up to the demand for industrial cameras. For instance, in 2020 BMW group (Germany), Microsoft and Bosch joined forces to form Open Manufacturing Platform (OPM) to accelerate the adoption of industry 4.0 that involve IoT connectivity, autonomous transport system, among others. This enables manufacturers to scale up productivity and efficiency, reduce downtime, and match the supply and demand side.

According to McKinsey 2019, the adoption of Industry 4.0 augments the productivity of technical professions by 45 to 55%.  Some of the companies that have adopted Industry 4.0 are Siemens (Germany), Allied Vision, Stemmer Imaging, among others.

Growing Popularity of Industrial Cameras among Different Sectors

Technology advancements in machine vision cameras such as CMOS technology that support a variety of interface standards — GigE Vision, USB3 Vision, camera link, and also a wide range of benefits, such as compactness and easy integration is anticipated to surpass all competition. This allows all industrial sectors to adopt industrial cameras to enhance productivity, safety, and plant efficiency. The following figure shows the adoption of industrial cameras among various industrial sectors in Europe in 2017.

Growth of GigE Vision and USB 3.0

USB 2.0 tends to be less efficient in power management, slower in data transfer speeds, and also has taken long to charge. This led to the emergence of USB 3.0, offering an array of benefits over USB 2.0 — efficient power management, a fast transfer speed of approximately 5,120 Mbps, and the ability to handle more power-hungry devices. USB 3.0 with CMOS industrial cameras have potential applications across sectors, such as consumer electronics, medical, and others.

USB 3.0, however, has some disadvantages, such as a more expensive flash drive, low-speed data transfer in combination with USD 2.0, and fewer device combability issues. This paves the way for the adoption of GigE Vision that enables quick and easy integration with nearly all image processing libraries. GigE Vision has long cable lengths without compromising with data transfer rates, thereby deployed in the industrial sector where high data transfer rates are required. This led to the burgeoning demand for CMOS industrial cameras in the industrial sector such as automotive, life science, and oil and gas industry that necessitate high-temperature measurement, weather and crowd monitoring, and industrial inspection.

Manufacturing Sector’s Lack of Skilled Professional

Machine vision cameras have an array of benefits — flexibility, compactness, high-reliability, and increased processing speed. However, the machine vision camera industry seems to lag on account of a lack of skilled professionals in the manufacturing sector. This has brought forth difficulties in terms of learning and troubleshooting, thereby resulting in longer downtimes of the production line, affecting the return-on-investment (ROI).  

Technology advancements such as Vision guide robotics (VGR) and 3D imaging, on the other hand, helps understand what specific applications are beneficial, is anticipated to pave the way for the increased adoption rate of machine vision cameras.

Regional Analysis

Geographically, the CMOS industrial camera market has been categorized into five different regions, namely Germany, France, the U.K., Benelux, Russia, Italy, Spain, and the rest of Europe. Among these, Germany accounted for the largest market share in 2019 and is expected to dominate the market and is presumed to exhibit the fastest growth in the CMOS industrial camera market during the forecast period. France occupied the second position in terms of market share.

Germany, owing to the presence of notable automotive industries such as BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler AG, among others, holds the largest share in the CMOS industrial camera market. These players are extensively adopting automated technology, which is eventually driving market growth. The increment is attributed to the growing demand for automation needs, which is generating substantial demand for industrial cameras for defect inspection, assembly inspection, paint finish inspection, dashboard inspection, windshield inspection, and final inspection.

The presence of giant manufacturers of CMOS industrial cameras such as Allied Vision, SONY, and STEMMER IMAGING are paving the way for the implementation of CMOS industrial cameras across various industries. This allows the company to successfully bring forth innovation in technology across several industrial sectors first in Germany and then globally.

The U.K. accounts for a substantial growth rate in the adoption of CMOS industrial camera, owing to rising investment by the U.K. government in road transportation that intends at making the U.K. a global center for intelligent mobility. In 2016, the U.K. government invested roughly USD 22.28 million in eight smart transportation projects, which is expected to commercialize in 2020.

The increase in investment in road transportation is slated to engender significant demand for CMOS industrial cameras for various applications, notably traffic monitoring, license plate recognition (LPR)/automatic license plate recognition (ANPR), toll and traffic enforcement systems, among others.

Segmental Analysis

In terms of application, the manufacturing segment is anticipated to dominate a major share across the region. The manufacturing segment includes both discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing. This includes automotive, food and beverages, aerospace, consumer electronics, among others. The manufacturing segment holds the majority of the share in the European CMOS industrial camera market.

The segment has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years due to the increasing adoption of automation needs in the manufacturing sector to meet the growing demand for delivering high-quality products, increasing production, minimizing error, and reducing costs. The CMOS industrial cameras in manufacturing are used for an array of reasons, notably monitoring web materials inspection such as plastic or paper manufacturing, defect detection, packaging and shipping, and measurement application.

According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) 2018, close to 2 million industrial robots are working in production industries, mainly automotive and electronic sectors, thereby handling a wide range of production, assembly, and finishing tasks.

Impact of covid-19

For most of 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has kept individuals quarantine in their homes worldwide. Governments have restricted movement and prohibited travel around the world to stop the spread of the disease. Undoubtedly, this has caused individuals to want to escape from isolation and enjoy life as before.

Due to the falling GDP and the disruption of large and small businesses, governments also appear to lift travel bans and ease travel restrictions from 2021. During this period, as people begin to travel again, the tourism industry can expect to see a dramatic increase in bus ticketing, which was affected earlier this year in terms of both income and employment rates.

Recent Developments