Expanding Into Emerging Markets For New Applications Could Help Overcome Demand Stagnation

Palo Alto, CA -- Programmable power supplies and electronic loads are essential requirements in most manufacturing setups involving electronic and electrical products. While this creates a constant demand for these products owing to their long functional duration, volume consumption in the global market is low. Prolonged consumption patterns limit growth and with many end-user application segments at a mature stage, the market for programmable DC power supplies and electronic loads is prone to demand saturation.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, World Programmable DC Power Supplies and DC Electronic Load Markets, reveals that revenue in this market totaled $ 304.3 million in 2004 and projects to grow to $448.9 million by 2011.

To overcome the negative impact of demand stagnation, vendors in the industry need to explore and develop additional demand in new applications and geographic markets.

"A few of the new emerging sectors whose expansion will create a tremendous potential for the demand of DC testing equipment include the fuel cells, solar cells, new battery technologies and the automotive electronics sectors," notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst G. V. Suryanarayana Raju. "Apart from the emergence of the new end-user segments, many geographic markets such as Asia and Latin America have created a demand for test equipment through new manufacturing facilities."

Applications and end-user segments for power supplies see the development of new products with a high content of electronics and semiconductor components. The incorporation of more electronics, integrated circuits, and intelligent components into manufacturing systems and products have necessitated the need for power supplies and electronic loads with better features to provide for various levels of power, current, and voltage.

Hence, by increasing the programmability and scalability features, vendors can offer better test solutions to manage new test procedures and increasing power requirements.

In addition, creating product differentiation by adopting new technologies and improved features is critical to negate the prevalent trend of commodity pricing. One major differentiating factor that would be hard to replicate is that of the regenerative electronic loads that feed energy back into the grid and prevent energy wastage.

Also, adoption of soft-switching and digital controls could lead to a fresh demand cycle in the form of up gradation.

Programmable power supplies will remain the largest revenue contributor among the two market segments, as the market for electronic loads is comparatively small due to limited market applications.

"As newer electronic applications have higher power requirements, medium to high power units across both the segments offer the best growth prospects," says Raju. "While North America commands a predominant share of the demand, the Asia Pacific region offers the highest growth potential due to a growing manufacture sector and an expanding consumer and communication equipment market."

SOURCE: Frost & Sullivan