Laser cutting machine industry will usher in a new round of transformation and upgrading

According to research by foreign market research institutions, fiber laser cutting machines will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7-8% in the next few years, reaching US$2.35 billion by 2024. In Europe and the United States, the increasing demand for fiber laser cutting machines has prompted the market to increase demand for advanced fiber laser cutting machines. At the same time, with the growth of demand in the automotive industry, the intensification of the competitive environment, the competition of new products, the increase in general industrial expenditures, the advancement of the process of conversion from old to new kinetic energy, the application scenarios and use of fiber laser cutting machines, etc., will promote the development of the Chinese market. In recent years, due to my country's technological position in the field of fiber laser cutting machines, its market share has increased year by year, and it has performed outstandingly in the global fiber laser cutting machine industry.

As far as the current development situation is concerned, fiber lasers will still be the mainstream light source for industrial applications in the next 10 years, and they have a stable position in terms of function and application. According to statistics from the Laser Processing Committee, in 2020, from the perspective of the laser cutting market, the output value increased by 15% compared with 2019, the installed capacity of equipment increased by 40%, and domestic light sources accounted for the mainstream. 1,500 domestic light source 12kW power laser cutting machines were installed. Now, domestic laser cutting technology, supporting components, software and hardware have been further optimized, the cutting efficiency has been significantly improved, and 40kW domestic light sources have been sold. In the future, with the help of new infrastructure, including the application of construction machinery, laser cutting equipment represented by fiber laser cutting machines will continue to usher in a new round of growth.

Laser bevel cutting is also a hot topic now. Many domestic companies have begun to invest in research and development and have achieved significant results. High-power laser equipment has the function of beveling, which can complete the beveling processing of traditional cutting, welding, milling and other processes at one time, greatly improving processing efficiency, improving product quality, using high-precision processing technology, saving resources and costs, and flexibly cutting special-shaped materials of different thicknesses, which is conducive to promoting technological innovation and equipment upgrading in the application industry.

High-power lasers dominate the field of laser processing, among which laser cutting is the mainstream in the current market. With the development of fiber lasers, laser cutting equipment has become a standard product. Since 2019, the cost-effectiveness of 10,000-watt fiber lasers has begun to break through the dominant position of plasma and flame processing in the field of metal processing such as thick plates, accelerating the replacement of traditional contact and low-precision metal processing methods. In recent years, in the field of metal cutting, fiber lasers have continued to develop in the direction of high power, gradually replacing traditional cutting methods in terms of cutting thickness and speed, environmental protection and safety.

Another laser processing market is the 10,000-watt high-power laser processing market. The scale of this part of the market will reach about US$2.1 billion by 2020, and will show a steady growth trend in the next five years. At present, metal cutting applications account for 70% of kilowatt-level applications, and the other two applications are metal welding and additive manufacturing. Although the industry expects that the metal welding market will surpass the cutting market in the future, from the current sales revenue, metal cutting applications are growing the fastest. 10,000-watt fiber lasers are expected to achieve $2.5 billion in metal cutting applications in 2022.

There is no doubt that the fiber laser cutting machine industry is undergoing a new round of transformation and upgrading. In order to gain greater development space, the functions of the equipment must be continuously expanded to produce new equipment suitable for different materials and processes. Fiber optic cutting equipment is mainly used in new infrastructure, rail transit, shipbuilding, aerospace, automobiles, construction machinery, medical equipment, kitchen and bathroom hardware, lighting, sheet metal processing and other fields. With unique technologies and solutions, a higher level of intelligence, automation, and digital technology will be used to escort high-quality, high-precision, high-efficiency, and high-flexibility processing and manufacturing.