NDT Inspection Services Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The NDT Inspection Services Market is Expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.7% during the forecast period 2021 - 2026. The growth of the market is owing to the exorbitant equipment costs and the shortage of highly skilled workers. NDT service firms offer a wide range of services, including NDT inspection, consultancy, material testing, and training and certification programs

Key Highlights

• Most of the non-destructive testing market is significantly dependent on the oil and gas market and the aerospace sector. According to the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing, in the UK every day, more than 25,000 inspections are carried out in factories and on-site to detect defects and damage in a huge range of products, plant, and structures; it is estimated that there are more than 120,000 inspectors operating worldwide.
• With the increase in automation in the industrial manufacturing and infrastructure sectors and drive for minimum breakdown and downtime across the industries; hence, there has been a substantial hike in the demand for flaw detection related to cracks, porosity, manufacturing disorders, and so on. Therefore, adherence to industrial safety norms is a significant factor behind the growth of the NDT market.
• Moreover, several governmental agencies and regional bodies, like the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), have been instituted across the world to take stringent measures for assuring the safety of instruments and overseeing of engineering services testing. This is important for gaining clearances and certificates from concerned authorities. This creates a positive impact on the NDT market globally.
• However, the outbreak of the Covid -19 pandemic is expected to adversely impact the NDt Services market as it involves the deployment of personnel on site. Moreover, the aerospace industry that is one of the major end user segments has been hugely affected across the globe. The market is expected to deploy drones for NDT Testing Services in critical indusstries like Oil & Gas in a post Covid-19 scenario.

Key Market Trends

Aerospace Industry is Expected to Account for a Major Share of the Market

• Inspection services have been projected to occupy the largest market share , followed by material testing and training services. Inspection services can be further segmented into visual inspection, radiography, ultrasonic inspection, and surface inspection techniques.
• Stringent government regulations promoting the use of NDT techniques for obtaining clearances and ensuring safety have led to a surge in demand for NDT services. Over the last few years, this demand has outweighed supply.
• Furthermore, increasing equipment costs have prompted companies to outsource inspection activities to third-party service providers, that have the required skillset and expertise to perform the tasks, in turn, driving the market for NDT services.
• The NDT service segment is expected to record robust growth in the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions, buoyed by an increased emphasis on infrastructural development. There are more than 120,000 service inspectors expected to be working, worldwide.
• NDT training services are governed by ISO and ASNT standards that prescribe the requisite skill set to be accrued by the NDT inspectors. However, the lack of educators has been a significant concern for training institutes.
• The aerospace industry is also demanding a shift toward computed radiography and increasing investment by market players in equipment and training will help in expanding the studied market scope further. In July 2019, Sintavia acquired a US-based NDT services company, QC Laboratories. Sintavia increased its metal 3D printer install base to 20, having recently moved into a new advanced manufacturing facility, mainly to deliver metal components to the aerospace and defense industries.

North America is Expected to Occupy Substantial Market Share During the Forecast Period

• United States has a mature non-destructive testing (NDT) market. The country’s highly active oil and gas and aerospace industries are one of the major sources of demand for the non-destructive testing equipment and services in the country. The recent improvements in the oil extraction techniques, such as fracking etc., and newfound shale resources in the country are expected to drive the demand for NDT equipment and services over the forecast period.
• With the United States Department of the Interior (DoI) planning to allow offshore exploratory drilling in about 90% of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) acreage, under the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program (National OCS Program) for 2019-2024, the oil and gas sector in the country is expected to open up new opportunities to the market. This program is expected to allow approximately 98% of the undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas of the United States to be available for exploration and development, involving several public private partnerships.
• Presently, the United States is the largest market for Aviation, with four of the significant airlines ranking in the top four when it comes to fleet size and control about 85% of the market, according to GAMA. As a result, the maintenance cost is not a significant factor, unlike other regions due to which the prospect of NDT testing in the region is quite bright in the future.
• Further, experts believe that rising labor costs in the emerging countries where the MRO services are outsourced could bring back the MRO service back to North America. However, it is also expected that this region have newer aircraft, which require fewer inspection and maintenance could also be a factor in the future.

Competitive Landscape

The Non - Destructive Testing Services Market is extremely competitive. The growing demand for inspection services is leading to increased innovation and new product launches for providing optimum solutions to the vendors. Some of the recent developments of the market are as follows:-

• October 2019 - Olympus Corporation introduced its latest series in OmniScan instruments that are recognized globally as the benchmark for portable phased array ultrasonic testing (PAUT) owing to their power, reliability and ease of use.

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