Analysis of the Global Welding Equipment and Consumables Market for the Power Industry

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Analysis of the Global Welding Equipment and Consumables Market for the Power Industry, finds that the market earned revenues of $445.5 million in 2011 and estimates this to reach $578.7 million in 2017, with a compound annual growth rate of 3.8%.

Asia Pacific is expected to have the largest growth prospective over the forecast period, owing to the vast number of ongoing and proposed projects in China and India. SAW equipment and SAW wires and fluxes are expected to have the largest demand - particularly in the wind sector - while the large numbers of thermal projects are expected to propel the growth of the GTAW and SMAW equipment, along with stick electrodes and solid wires.

“The market has continued to improve in 2010, particularly from the growing economies, - comments Ruth Shilpa Sudhakar, Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. - However, emerging economies like China and India witnessed the lowest adoption of advanced technologies such as SAW and GTAW. As the cost of SAW and GTAW is higher than the largely used SMAW in the region, this was a growth limiting factor and is expected to continue driving this trend over the forecast period.”

In addition, Government investments in the power industries and foreign direct investments (FDI) in the wind and thermal sectors – particularly in Africa, China and India - are expected to drive the welding equipment and consumables market by 2017. The growing demand has also led to a rise in emerging technologies, such as corrosion resistant consumables that provide better productivity and thus cost reductions.

The main restraint of the global welding equipment and consumables market in the power industry is the delay in nuclear power projects, due to the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami of March 2011. The rebounds of these projects are expected to happen sooner in the Asia Pacific region than in Europe and North America, where they are expected in the long term.

What’s more, the impact of the euro crisis has caused closure of projects in Europe. Fear of an expected recession in 2012 has therefore made end users more cautious on their expenditures, which has led to budget cuts on welding. These factors are expected to limit the growth of the welding equipment and consumables market over the forecast period.

“The slowdown of projects has invariably led to lower consumption of welding equipment and consumables market in 2009, - adds Sudhakar. - The same was witnessed in 2011 among the nuclear sector. End user industries are also becoming increasingly conservative on their expenditures due to the fear of a global down turn in 2012. This has caused budget cuts on welding and changing costs from high cost welding equipment such as SAW and GTAW to the low cost SMAW, GMAW, and flux cored wires to stick electrodes and solid wires.”

Product quality, suitability and customer support will be key decision making factors for the global welding equipment and consumables market in the power industry. While the safety requirements for nuclear industries are being revised, manufacturers are expected to provide state of the art equipment and consumables with the latest technology at affordable prices.

“Manufacturers are also expanding their distribution networks - particularly into emerging economies - to widen global foot print, as well as entering into acquisitions, - concludes Sudhakar. - This will help meet the large demand for welding equipment and consumables requirement for the power sectors in these regions.”