Servo Drives Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022-2027)

Key Highlights

• Mobile robotics such as Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) and Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) have been driving demand for servo drives and this is expected to continue in future. These mobile robots are being used in warehouses by the large companies and municipalities.
• For instance, in 2021, Advanced Motion Control is going to start packaging its FlexPro drives as multi-axis products and make them available as standards. They will essentially be several individual FlexPro drives mounted to a single PCB with a common power and interface.
• In the case of motors other than servo motors, they must be deployed with different torque and speeds. But the servo motors provide a diverse range of torque and speeds as a single unit. Further, these drives require less maintenance which are some factors adding demand for servo drives for different applications.
• Governments in various countries are focusing on installing energy-saving equipment to decrease energy consumption at industrial and commercial levels, where servo drives play an important role. Also, the demand for energy in coming years is anticipated to rise owing to the growing industrial automation, which will bolster the demand for market studied. However, the complexity of the operation and high initial setup cost are the factors hindering the market growth.
• The Covid-19 outbreak has weakened the demand for servo drives as the use of motors and its demand from various industries such as oil & gas, mining, food processing, automobile, and others has declined. Also, the disruption in the supply chain due to pandemic restrictions has affected the demand and supply of servo drives in the market.

Key Market Trends

Discrete Manufacturing is Expected to Grow Significantly

• Servo drives find robust applications across the discrete manufacturing industry, which deals with the mass production of automobiles, aircraft, defense equipment, electronic products, semiconductors, and textiles.
• The UK government passed the law in 2019 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050, and the green industrial revolution initiative pledges to stop the sale of fossil fuel vehicles by 2030, which could boost the adoption of electric cars creating the demand for servo motors and hence for the servo drives.
• The spending on manufacturing and R&D has increased, with the annual investments in the EU region in the past few years by the major players of different industries. For instance, in March 2022, Intel announced the first phase of its plan to invest EUR 80 billion in the EU over the next decade along the entire semiconductor value chain from research and development (R&D) to manufacturing to state-of-the-art packaging technologies. The growth in the manufacturing operations is expected to create a wide scope for the market.
• Furthermore, the rising industrialization, infrastructure activities, and oil & gas industry growth in developing countries of the Asia Pacific region is likely to dominate the demand for servo drives. In addition, the worldwide population is growing at an exponential rate, has led to urbanization over the last decade, and raised the demand for products and services across various industry verticals; as a result, industrialization is rising.
• Moreover, the government of India approved the PLI scheme for 16 plants in the pharmaceutical industry. The establishment of these 16 plants would result in a total investment of USD 47.01 million. The commercial development of these plants is expected to begin by April 2023. Also, the government announced USD 1 billion to each semiconductor company to establish manufacturing units in the country.

Asia Pacific is Anticipated to Hold Significant Share

• China is witnessing growth in the adoption of robotic process automation, owing to the growing adoption of automation technologies in the Asia-Pacific region. The region is an essential market for boosting robotic adoption and AI development. Also, the number of local businesses in the countries like China, India have started implementing automation journey to manage costs and to improve business value.
• The energy concern in the region is also increasing the adoption of servo drives & motors and stimulating many industries to develop technologically advanced energy-efficient devices, hence further driving the servo drives growth. For instance, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) report 2022, the electricity demand in 2021 is increased by 8% from a low of 2% in 2020 in the Asia Pacific region and mostly driven by China and India, both up around 10%.
• The control systems in region have emerged across various fields, like the energy, oil and gas, transportation, water, and municipal sectors. Due to the deep integration of information technology and industry and the rapid development of the Internet of Things, the networked control system is becoming the development trend of industrial automation in countries.
• Furthermore, India is another country that offers vast potential for the studied market vendors. The country is a newly industrialized landscape due to increasing investment in advanced technologies, becoming a preferred manufacturing hub. For instance, the Indian government is planning to boost domestic production of chemicals and petrochemicals to cut down imports and make India a manufacturing hub for the sector which is expected to create the demand of servo drives in forecast period.

Competitive Landscape

• March 2022 - ADVANCED Motion Controls has released 7 new micro-sized FlexPro servo drives rated to output 60A continuous. The 60A continuous current rating is 33% higher than previous models for the same size making these their highest power-density servo drives to date. This offering includes PCB Mount, Machine Embedded and Development Board form factors.
• March 2021 - Yaskawa Electric Corporation announced the launch of the AC servo drives “Σ-X Series”, the successor to the reputed “Σ-7 Series” to enhance customer’s added value with the industry’s best motion performance and digital data solution.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support