North American sales of machine vision systems and components hit $2.3 billion in 2016, its highest annual total ever, according to the AIA, the industry's trade association.
The components category grew 1 percent, to $320 million in 2016, AIA said. Cameras grew 3 percent, and lighting and software both grew 1 percent.
The machine visions systems category was flat, at $2 billion. Within machine vision systems, sales of smart cameras increased 13 percent, to $326 million, while sales of application specific machine vision systems fell by 2 percent, to $1.6 million, said the trade group in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The fourth quarter of 2016 was strong, AIA said.
“Forty-seven percent of industry experts are expecting the market to continue its growth in the first half of 2017, 43 percent believe sales will remain flat and 10 percent expect a contraction,” said Alex Shikany, AIA's director of market analysis.
AIA and its parent group, the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) are looking forward to the Automate 2017 trade show, set for McCormick Place in Chicago April 3-6.
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