For the first time in many years, the overall MS market actually declined in revenues in 2009, although the 2.5% contraction in demand was fairly small compared to the broader analytical instrument market, let alone the broader economy. IBO expects the MS market to rebound significantly in 2010, growing 8.2% and reaching nearly $2.5 billion in worldwide demand. The heavy focus on science by governmental stimulus spending is expected to help demand for larger-ticket items such as MS, which will drive demand by both government and academic laboratories. In addition, significant demand was pushed back into 2010 by companies that put major capital expenditures on hold, which will also contribute to the rebound.

Despite the deep global recession, vendors have continued the fairly rapid pace of technological development that has been a hallmark of the MS market. The seemingly unabated flow of new product introductions with ever-improving performance capabilities will help maintain high single-digit growth in 2010 and beyond. A large percentage of initial system sales will represent replacements of instruments that are rapidly becoming obsolete for high-end research.

The tandem LC-MS market, which includes triple quadrupole LC-MS and ion trap LC-MS, accounts for more than a third of the MS market, and is expected to grow nearly 9% in 2010. This market has been the most dynamic in terms of vendor share, with the leader, Applied Biosystems, losing market share, and Agilent picking up much of it.

While the GC/MS market was considerably affected by sharp downturns in the oil, gas and environmental testing industries in 2009, food safety demand helped to offset the drop, and should help continue to drive the market in 2010. Gradually rebounding oil prices and more progressive environmental regulation and enforcement will lead to mid single-digit annual growth going forward.

The fastest-growing segments of the MS market in 2010 will be the TOF LC-MS market, which includes Q-TOF MS and LC-TOF MS, and the FT-MS market, both of which are expected to see consistent double-digit growth for the foreseeable future. These two markets generally consist of the highest-performance and most expensive of all mass spectrometers, and have experienced numerous new instrument introductions that are rapidly making currently installed models obsolete.

The MALDI-TOF market has seen the pace of growth in demand fall off considerably in recent years, although segments of the market are experiencing renewed vigor from niche life science applications, such as DNA sequencing, microbial identification and imaging. Such applications will keep annual growth in the 4%–5% range, compared to a relatively minimal contraction in 2009.

Single quadrupole LC-MS will return to annual growth in 2010 of between 6% and 7% and will remain in that growth range for the next several years. The introduction of single quad LC-MS instruments specifically designed to work with new UHPLC instruments, which have proven very popular, will help drive growth, as will the steady trend of HPLC users adding MS detection to their systems.

The magnetic sector market will continue to plod along in 2010 with low single-digit growth, following a slight decline in sales in 2009. This segment is by far the most mature of the MS markets, but these instruments are useful in certain very specific applications. Significant new product introductions and performance improvements are much more rare in the magnetic sector market, and may only occur once per decade.

Life Technologies’ MS joint venture with MDS Sciex, which is expected to be acquired by Danaher (see IBO 9/15/09) this year, remains the leading MS vendor. Agilent’s acquisition of Varian (see IBO 7/31/09) will also increase its MS sales.

Chart: 2008–2011 Total Mass Spectrometry Market

2008 2009 2010 2011

Mass Spectrometry 2359 2304 2493 2713

Chart: 2009 Mass Spectroscopy Market by Technique

2009

Tandem LC-MS 790

GC-MS 440

TOF-LC-MS 375

MALDI-TOF 260

FT-MS 185

Single Quad LC-MS 150

Magnetic Sector 104

Chart: 2009 Mass Spectrometry Market by Product Type

2009

Initial Systems 1603

Aftermarket 257

Service 444

Mass Spectrometry Market Leaders

Tandem LC-MS Life Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific

GC-MS Agilent, Varian

TOF-LC-MS Waters, Life Technologies

MALDI-TOF Bruker, Life Technologies

Single Quad. LC-MS Agilent, Waters

Magnetic Sector Thermo Fisher Scientific, JEOL

FT-MS Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bruker

Mass Spectrometry 2009–2010

Market Share Growth Rate

Tandem LC-MS 34.3% 8.9%

GC-MS 19.1% 5.7%

TOF-LC-MS 16.3% 10.7%

MALDI-TOF 11.3% 5.0%

FT-MS 8.0% 14.6%

Single Quad LC-MS 6.5% 6.7%

Magnetic Sector 4.5% 3.8%

Total 100.0% 8.2%