Disruption in micro materials processing market opens opportunities for laser suppliers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA: Sales of lasers for low-power materials processing has fallen by 40 percent in 2009, but sales will grow to exceed $460 million by 2013.

While the market appears at first to be merely scaling to the world economy, it is also likely to disrupt mark et share in many segments, in a game of musical chairs. These are some of the conclusions of a new report from Strategies Unlimited.

The strongest growth will be in fiber lasers, diode lasers, green lasers, m ode-locked (ultrafast) lasers, and lasers for manufacturing solar cells. All segments will see some growth beginning in 2010, but there will be more shuffling of technologies and suppliers than is first apparent, given the evolving situation in these segments.

Coherent, Rofin-Sinar, and GSI Group (including the revenues for Excel Technology for all of 2008) are at the top of the list in last year’s market share. This is because of the highly fragmented nature of the market.

These companies have strong shares in more than one laser technology in this low-power category, while many companies are highly concentrated in just one, or their sa les are split across other application areas not counted in this study.