Following a slight decline in demand in 2012, sales of molecular spectroscopy instruments should grow once again in 2013, though still be fairly weak. Most segments of the market are expected to experience fairly flat demand this year, with the strongest sales growth of any one technology segment not expected to break 5%. Weakness in the academic sector and further cutbacks in government will offset most of the improving picture from industrial sectors in 2013, but an inevitable rebound should lead to high single-digit growth in 2014.

The NMR market, which has experienced many years of double-digit growth, declined substantially in 2012, as positive effects from stimulus spending gave way to government budget cuts, heavily impacting the academic market as well. As governments continue to look to curtail spending in 2013, NMR demand is likely to edge back further. However, NMR is an extremely powerful technique, and a strong rebound is anticipated when the current period of government austerity fades, most likely in 2014.

The UV-Vis spectrometer market is not only large but extremely diverse, consisting of everything from simple, inexpensive photometric colorimeters used in water analysis test kits to high-end UV-Vis/NIR systems used in the electronics and materials industry. The various subsegments of the UV-Vis market are expected to show flat growth in 2013, with the lone exception being microvolume UV-Vis sales, which are largely driven by biotechnology and related industries. A broad rebound across industries should lead to much stronger growth across all areas of the UV-Vis market by 2014. A market with many suppliers, the market leaders are Danaher’s Hach unit and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

The IR spectroscopy market will experience the strongest sales growth of any molecular spectroscopy technique in 2013. Demand for portable IR instruments is helping to drive the market to some degree, with the oil and gas sector being key. However, the rise of terahertz spectroscopy will be the biggest driver of the IR market in 2013. Although terahertz spectroscopy appears to be more suited to process and industrial applications, it is rapidly becoming a significant percentage of the IR spectroscopy market.

After a modest decline in demand in 2012, demand for color analysis instrumentation should be level in 2013. The big news in the market in 2012 was the acquisition of market leader X-Rite by Danaher (see IBO 4/15/12).

Demand for NIR and Raman is expected to show similar growth rates in 2013. The strong connection between NIR and the agriculture sector is helping to somewhat insulate this market from cuts in government and academic spending that impact many other analytical technologies. In contrast, demand for Raman spectroscopy, which has been strong in recent years, is much more reliant on government and academic demand, resulting in a second consecutive year of low single-digit growth.

Fluorescence and luminescence spectrometers compete against microplate readers, which are included in the lab automation market (page 7). However, growth in industries such as environmental analysis is helping to maintain some level of sales growth for fluorescence and luminescence spectrometry. Demand for ellipsometry is heavily tied to the semiconductor/electronics industry, which is a highly cyclical market, so sales should rebound by 2014.

 Bar Graph: 2011–2014 Total Molecular Spectroscopy Market

               2011    2012    2013    2014

 $ Millions   3,614   3,577   3,628   3,961

 Molecular Spectroscopy 2012–2013

                      Market Share 2012       Growth Rate 2013

 NMR, EPR                    26.2%                  -0.5%

 UV-Vis                      22.0%                   1.3%

 IR                          18.5%                   4.4%

 Colorimetry                  8.9%                  -0.3%

 NIR                          8.1%                   2.6%

 Raman                        6.6%                   2.6%

 Fluorescence, Luminescence   4.5%                   1.8%

 Polarimetry, Refractometry   3.5%                   1.0%

 Ellipsometry                 1.8%                   0.2%

 Total                      100.0%                   1.4%

 Molecular Spectroscopy Market Leaders

 NMR, EPR                         Bruker, Agilent

 UV-Vis                           Hach (Danaher), Thermo 

 IR                               Thermo, PerkinElmer

 Colorimetry                      X-Rite (Danaher), Konica Minolta

 NIR                              FOSS, Thermo

 Raman                            Thermo, Horiba

 Fluorescence, Luminescence       HORIBA, PerkinElmer

 Polarimetry and Refractometry    ATAGO, Hanna Instruments

 Ellipsometry                     HORIBA, Sentech

 Pie Chart: 2012 Molecular Spectroscopy Suppliers’ Market Shares

 Bruker      18%

 Thermo      10%

 Agilent      8%

 PerkinElmer  6%

 FOSS         4%

 Other       53%

 Pie Chart: 2012 Molecular Spectroscopy Market by Product Type

 Initial Systems  67%

 Aftermarket      19%

 Service          14%