Emerging Economies and PACs Driving PLC Growth

Strong economic growth in Asia and Eastern Europe significantly boosted the programmable logic controller (PLC) market in 2007. While economic expansion is expected to continue, future growth will be at a slower pace. The worldwide market for PLCs, which reached nearly US$9 billion in 2007, is forecasted to grow an a CAGR of 6.5% to over U$12 billion in 2012. ARC Advisory Group study.

Robust investments in manufacturing and infrastructure industries continued worldwide. “Emerging economies, such as those in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and Eastern Europe, helped propel the growth of the PLC market, which was driven by increasing consumer demand from the growing middle class in those countries, adding new infrastructure within those countries to boost their quality of life,“ according to Senior Analyst Himanshu Shah, the principal author of ARC’s “Programmable Logic Controller Worldwide Outlook”.

Preference for PAC

The sudy also says that the market is demanding the programmable automation controller (PAC), a multi-disciplined controller capable of providing real-time logic, motion, and process control, in addition to HMI and other functions, on a single platform. Major automation suppliers have extended PLC functions beyond just logic, especially in higher end models.

The PAC market growth is expected to be higher than the overall PLC market growth. This growth will be driven by the logical extension of PLC functionality to a multi-discipline platform. ARC predicts that most of the small and large PLCs of today, as well as some of the micro PLCs, will morph into PACs, and the pure PLCs will remain at the nano and some of the micro level.