Research Report on Linear Motor Market in China

2019-05-11 17:03:21

At present, China's economy has generally maintained a steady trend of operation. The quality of economic growth has improved, employment has increased steadily, and prices have risen moderately. The imbalance between economic supply and demand is being alleviated, and economic growth shows a trend of gradual improvement in quality and efficiency. In 2018, China's economic growth is facing downward pressure. Generally speaking, the growth rate of domestic demand will decrease slightly and that of external demand will change from negative to positive.

With the promulgation and promotion of "Industrial 4.0" and "Intelligent Manufacturing" policies, the state has increased its investment and support for industrial manufacturing. With the continuous upgrading of industrial machinery automation, the upstream linear motor is growing rapidly in China. Foreign brands have increased their investment in the Chinese market. At the same time, domestic small brands have rapidly joined in the production and manufacture of linear motors. Especially in coastal areas, nearly 20 new linear motor companies are established every year.

In the domestic market, although linear motor is still in the initial stage of development, product technology and technology need to be further improved and mature, but with the wave of industrial machinery automation upgrading, the future development prospects are good. Since 2013, the domestic linear motor market has maintained rapid development, and some of the major manufacturers in China have doubled their growth. For example, Jacobs and Shanghai Bank doubled their linear motor business from 2013 to 2014, slowed down slightly in 2017, but still ranked first. As a competitor of Yakobeth, Shanghai Bank's competitiveness in China can not be underestimated. Other major brands such as Cologne, Dazu Electric Machinery, Anchuan Electric Machinery, Shanyang Electric Machinery, etc. also maintained a 20%-30% growth rate. From the perspective of application industry, the proportion of semiconductor, laser processing and machine tool industries accounts for about 68%. The application of other emerging industries such as 3C electronics and lithium batteries also shows an increasing trend.

I. Market Challenges

Linear motor is still in the initial stage of development in China. At present, it is facing severe market challenges.

1. Various products

In response to the 13th Five-Year Plan, new small-brand linear motor manufacturers have sprung up in China, and foreign brand manufacturers have increased their investment in the domestic market. However, there is no unified standard for planning and management. Whether it is the product structure, appearance, or the technical parameters of the product, it presents the supplier's own style. This situation is not conducive to the development of various businesses. For example, once a problem arises, a special person must be dispatched to the scene to solve the problem.

2. The market puts forward higher requirements for product functions.

With the rapid development of various industries in China's industrial field, the product quality is required to be higher and higher, and the requirements of machine performance, speed and accuracy are also gradually improved, especially in CNC machine tools, semiconductor integrated equipment and other machinery. Originally the dominant servo plus screw combination, it is precisely because gradually unable to meet these requirements, which has led to the rapid growth of linear motors. The performance, speed and accuracy of linear motors need to be improved continuously, especially for domestic brands.

3. Domestic control technology needs to be improved

The development of linear motor abroad is earlier than that in China. At present, it has been applied to precision machine tools and other processing equipment at a high level, but it is still in its infancy in China. Domestic technicians are not familiar with the application of linear motors and have no rich experience. On the other hand, there is a certain gap between domestic control technology and foreign control technology. Therefore, at present, the main trend is to select foreign brands of linear motors.

4. The price is too high

Foreign brands account for more than 60% of the domestic linear motor market, such as Jacobs, ShangYin, Colmorgan and so on. Domestic brands are numerous and miscellaneous, and they are not outstanding. Although the price is much lower than that of imported products, it still needs to be improved in technology, manufacturing process and quality, and has not been widely recognized by mass manufacturers. Therefore, the major domestic customers mainly purchase foreign brands. Most foreign linear motors are imported, so the price has remained high. Compared with the combination of servo motor and ball screw, the price of linear motor is much higher. This restricts the demand of some manufacturers.

2. Description of Linear Motor Market Scale

Since 2013, linear motors have maintained rapid growth. The overall performance of 2016 increased by 30% year-on-year. The year-on-year growth in 2017 was 28.5%. Linear motors are mainly used in semiconductor, laser processing, machine tools, lithium batteries and other industries. In the next few years, affected by the 13th Five-Year Plan, these industries are expected to show more than 20% rapid growth in the future. Therefore, MIRrui industry forecasts that the linear motor market will continue to grow rapidly in the next three years, with a growth rate of about 30%, as shown in Fig. 1 and Table 1.

Figure 12 Expectations of China's Linear Market Scale Growth in 2015-2021 (Million Yuan)

Table 1 Expectation of Scale Growth of China's Linear Motor Market from 2015 to 2021

3. Segmentation of Linear Motor Market Scale

1. Market Scale of Linear Motor

A. Segmentation by industry

Linear motors are mainly used in OEM market, including machine tools, semiconductor equipment, laser processing equipment, is the main market of linear motors.

In 2017, linear motor market as a whole, machine tools are still the most widely used industry, accounting for 25.2% of the total market, mainly concentrated in EDM and high-speed CNC machine tools, as shown in Figure 2.

Intelligent manufacturing brings new opportunities and challenges to CNC machine tool industry in China. With the improvement of automation of industrial machinery, the requirements for machine tools and equipment are getting higher and higher. High-speed, high-precision, compound, intelligent, open, parallel drive, network, extreme, Green has become the development trend and direction of CNC machine tools. With the advantages of high speed, high precision and high stiffness, linear motor has been gradually applied to machine tools. In 2017, the performance of linear motor applied in machine tool industry accounted for 25.2% of the overall performance of linear motor. In the future, with the promotion of national policy, the proportion of machine tools using linear motors may increase.

Second is the semiconductor industry. In recent years, as a national high-tech industry, the semiconductor industry has attracted the attention of the state and government departments at all levels. Promoted by policies, it has developed rapidly. In 2017, the performance of linear motor in the semiconductor industry accounted for about 22.5% of the overall market. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the government and local governments still launched a series of policies to vigorously encourage and support the development of the semiconductor industry. MIR Rui predicts that the semiconductor industry will continue to grow rapidly in the future, an increase of about 22.5%.

Laser processing equipment is also one of the main application industries of linear motors. On the one hand, with the development of technology, the performance of linear motors is constantly improving and the cost is decreasing, which creates conditions for its wide application. On the other hand, the application industry of laser processing equipment, such as laser cutting machine, constantly puts forward higher requirements for cutting quality and efficiency. For this reason, the laser cutting machine driven by linear motor came into being. Because of its fast speed, high acceleration and high positioning accuracy, it is favored by high-end customers in the market. In the laser processing industry in 2017, the market size of linear motors accounted for 20.8%.

In addition, linear motors are used in lithium batteries, EMS, electronic manufacturing and other industries. With the further development of intelligent manufacturing and industrial automation, the market of linear motors will be further expanded and the market scale will gradually increase.

Fig. 2 Market Scale of Linear Motor in China - Sub-industry (Million Yuan)

B. Segmentation by product category

Linear motor is divided into iron core and non-iron core linear motor. The thrust of linear motor with iron core is suitable for point-to-point positioning operation, and smooth motion without iron core is suitable for trajectory operation. The application occasions of the two motors are different. Coreless linear motors are mainly used in machine tools, laser processing machines, and semiconductor equipment industries, non-core linear motors electronic equipment, semiconductor equipment, medical machinery, textile machinery, packaging machinery and other industries. From the price point of view, the linear motor with iron core is more economical than the linear motor without iron core, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Market Scale of Linear Motor in China - Sub-products

C. Subdividing by Region

The linear motor market is mainly concentrated in South China, East China and North China. As shown in Figure 4, South China accounts for 44% of the total, mainly in semiconductor, electronic manufacturing and other industries mostly concentrated in South China. East China is mainly a large manufacturing industry, machine tools, laser processing and medical equipment industry, the demand for linear motors is also large, accounting for 27.8% of the overall market. North China accounts for 19.5%, mainly from machine tools and laser processing equipment.

Fig. 4 Size of Chinese linear motor Market - subregion

2. Market Scale of Linear Motor Subsuppliers

At present, foreign brands occupy more than 60% of the market share of linear motor in China, and the brands are mainly concentrated in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Europe and the United States. Among them, Singaporean brand ranks first with 19% market share. Its product characteristics are that its technology and performance level are comparatively in line with the needs of Chinese users, and it has certain price advantages. With good performance-price ratio and high reliability, it has obtained stable and sustained customer sources, as shown in Figure 5.

As Yakobeth's main competitor, Taiwan's ShangYin can not be underestimated. ShangYin has a rich product line, a wide range of business coverage, and a high degree of collocation between its own products, so it has a part of the stable market. In addition, the quality of linear motor is reliable, and the price is lower than other foreign brands, which is favored by customers. In 2017, linear motor performance accounted for 13.8% of the overall market.

Among European and American brands, Cologne, Parker and Siemens also have considerable advantages. The total market share of these European and American brands is about 8.5%.

In addition to Singapore, Taiwan, Europe and the United States linear motor brand, Japanese linear motor is also widely used, its technical level and price level between imported mid-end products and domestic brands, accounting for about 21.3% of the overall performance.

China's domestic brands mainly include Dazu Motor, Zhengzhou Weina Technology, Jiaxing Hualing, Qingdao on the same day, and nearly 20 small brands in coastal areas join in the production of linear motors a year. At present, the market share of domestic brands is about 30%.

Fig. 5 Size of main suppliers of linear motor in China