The general analytical techniques (GAT) segment of the analytical instrument market is a collection of the most basic laboratory instruments, including electrochemistry, lab balances, lab-scale radioactivity testing systems, dissolution testing instruments, and continuous flow (CFA) & discrete analyzers. This product grouping is rather diverse, as the fundamental technologies behind these techniques are all very different. One unfortunate commonality that most of these technologies share is that they tend to be slower growing parts of the overall instrumentation market. Indeed, demand as a whole is forecast to decline slightly for 2016. The two largest markets, electrochemistry and lab balances, are quite common instruments in a broad variety of end-user markets, providing stable demand at the cost of being commodity markets.

By a small margin, electrochemistry is the largest individual GAT market. It includes a broad variety of electrochemical methods, from pH meters to titration. Total market demand for these products represents over $800 million in sales. Despite broad applications, especially in environmental testing, market demand is forecast to be essentially unchanged for 2016, with nominal growth of 0.1%. Metrohm and Xylem are the most significant vendors of electrochemistry.

Laboratory balances are the second major technology market within GAT. While the situation looks better than last year, the forecast for 2016 calls for a 0.4% decline in demand. Although ubiquitous instruments, balances have a long life cycle, and replacement sales are easily delayed. Mettler-Toledo dominates the lab balance market, with a market share of greater than 50%. Sartorius is the next most significant vendor, followed by A&D Weighing and Shimadzu.

The market for radioactivity systems continues to face significant headwinds. In life science applications, competing techniques that do not require radioactive reagents are suppressing demand. Thus, demand for radioactivity instrumentation is forecast to decline 3.5% in 2016. PerkinElmer, the major vendor, is particularly associated with the life science market for liquid scintillation products. Other radioactivity systems is more associated with nuclear energy or other non–life science applications. Canberra Industries (Areva) is the major supplier in this portion of the market. Areva has been soliciting offers to purchase the Canberra business, and a sale is anticipated in 2016 (see IBO 12/31/15).

Dissolution testing equipment is one of the smaller GAT product segments, making up 9.3% of total GAT revenues in 2015. These instruments are sold almost exclusively into regulated pharmaceutical laboratories, and continued strength from that sector will support growth in demand. For 2016, demand is forecast to increase 2.4%, approaching $200 million in total revenue. Agilent Technologies and SOTAX are the market leaders in this technology segment.

CFA & discrete analyzers represent the smallest segment of the GAT market, with a 2015 share of only 3.0%. The two major end-user markets for these instruments are environmental testing and food. While the food market continues to increase its reliance on these instruments, demand in the environmental testing market is cooling off a bit. In total, demand for CFA and discrete analyzers is forecast to decline slightly this year. While smaller suppliers continue to discover niche applications, the dominant players in the market are still Thermo Fisher Scientific and Seal Analytical (Porvair).

Mettler-Toledo and Sartorius both participate in the two largest GAT markets, electrochemistry and lab balances; this cements their positions as the top two companies in the overall GAT market, with market shares of 21% and 12% respectively. Thermo holds the third largest position in the GAT market, competing directly in all of the techniques apart from dissolution testing equipment. Danaher, Metrohm and Xylem round out the list of the top six GAT vendors.