For instrument and laboratory product companies, China has become the fastest growing market among major world economies. This is not surprising considering the country’s economic ascension and growing R&D spending. In 2013, analytical instrument sales (comprised of the product categories listed in the January 15 issue of IBO, including aftermarket products and service) to China are estimated to have totaled more than $4 billion to represent close to 10% of the total analytical instrument market.

Last year, instrument demand in China grew in the high single digits as the country’s economic slowdown affected sales to certain end-market segments and the market as a whole matured. In fact, the Chinese instrument market’s average growth rate is expected to slow from 2012 to 2017 compared to the prior five-year period. The information in this article is taken from Strategic Directions International’s December 2013 report, “The World Eyes China and China Eyes the World: Demand and Competition in the Analytical and Life Science Instrumentation Market.”

The largest end-markets in China for analytical instruments are academia, the pharmaceutical industry and government. The relocation of foreign biopharmaceutical companies’ R&D to the country, as well as the government’s commitment to domestic pharmaceutical and biotechnology research has bolstered demand for instrumentation. Consequently, separations techniques, particularly HPLC, and life science instrumentation are the largest segments of the Chinese instrument market. Among life science instrument techniques, PCR and sequencing are the largest markets. However, demand for cell analysis techniques currently is growing faster than either the PCR or sequencing markets.

Life science instrumentation is among the categories of instrumentation techniques for which Chinese demand is growing in the double digits. In addition, MS, molecular spectroscopy, laboratory automation and surface science are among the technology categories recording the fastest sales growth in China. The application of MS and molecular spectroscopy in multiple research and applied markets contributes to the rapid growth rate for these techniques in China. As with life science instrumentation, growth in sales for laboratory automation techniques is strengthened by the country’s rapidly expanding academic and pharmaceutical R&D footprint. Surface science market growth in China is driven by the sale of high-end systems for advanced research in the academic and government end-markets.

The country’s industrial development and manufacturing base has fed demand for other types of instrumentation. Specifically, China is a major market for atomic spectroscopy and materials characterization techniques. X-ray fluorescence systems make up the majority of the Chinese atomic spectroscopy market, but it is demand for ICP-MS and total organic carbon and sum parameters analyzers that is currently the fastest among atomic spectroscopy techniques. Demand for materials characterization techniques is fueled by the range of industrial applications found in China and thus benefits from China’s manufacturing-based economy.

The Chinese analytical instrumentation market is dominated by foreign companies. Agilent Technologies and Thermo Fisher Scientific are the leading vendors, with the other major international instrument suppliers competing closely for market share. Among the country’s top 25 instrument vendors are three Chinese companies: Motic, a supplier of optical microscopes; Beijing Beifen-Ruili Analytical, which provides chromatography and spectroscopy systems; and publicly held Techcomp, a broad-based supplier.