Drives Market will contract in 2009 but recover in 2010

The markets for motion control products, such as servo and stepper drives, are expected to perform poorly during the downturn. These products rely heavily on the semiconductor, robotics, machine tool, and printing industries; sectors that have been severely depressed by the recession. As a result, the servo drives market is predicted to contract by nearly 20% in terms of revenues in 2009, while the stepper drives market is forecast to decline by more than 8%. Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) continue to be the leading consumer of industrial drives, accounting for more than 43% of the worldwide market, is projected to decline by 13.6% in 2009. The Asia Pacific drives market is the only regional market forecast to have positive growth in 2009. The positive outlook is attributed to continued economic expansion in China, where GDP is forecast to increase by nearly 9% this year, and the focus on energy conservation by the Chinese government, witnessed in both the recent stimulus package and the existing Top-1000 program, which targets a 20% reduction in Chinese industrial energy consumption over a five-year period. The largest design centre for drives has been Japan, although it is predicted that beginning in 2011 the EMEA region will overtake Japan as the largest design centre for industrial drives.