At the world’s premier trade fair for the metal-working sector, manufacturers of machine tools and components will be showcasing products, solutions and services for meeting and mastering the challenges involved in industrial production operations.
“The whole world over, the industrial sector is facing major challenges”, says Dr. Wilfried Schäfer, Executive Director of the EMO’s organizer VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In every country, he explains, rising levels of affluence are also triggering a concomitant demand for better, more modern products. And the key to this is machine tools. Social mega-trends like infrastructural upgrading, mobility, energy, nutrition or health are requiring enhanced performance capabilities from the industrial sector and are thus also boosting machine tool consumption. “The EMO Hannover 2013 will be showing trade visitors from the international user industries the technologies that will enable them to meet and master the challenges their production processes are facing”, explains Schäfer.
The international machine tool market has more than tripled in the past 20 years up to 2012, to around $85 billion. Since the turn of the millennium, machine tool consumption on a dollar basis has grown by an annual average of almost 7 percent. The principal driver here was Asia, where in 2012 two-thirds of total worldwide machine tool production output was consumed.
International machine tool market is growing – customers are investing
In the year of EMO 2013, economic pundits are anticipating another rise in machine tool consumption, by 8 percent to reach what will then be around $92 billion. Following a year of slight decline in 2012, their prediction is based on the assumption that GDP and industrial production output are going to increase again more vigorously worldwide. In China, the premier growth driver for the global economy, the double figure growth rates in GDP are weakening to high single figure increases. But there’s an ongoing shift in the weightings involved: as per capita income rises, demand for consumer goods supersedes demand for capital goods as the primary driver. Now it is the growing middle class who are demanding more and more goods and services, electronic high-tech products, more and eco-friendly vehicles, and much, much more. This applies not only to China, but to many emergent markets worldwide.
This is benefiting the major customer groupings of the international machine tool manufacturers: the automotive industry and its components suppliers, mechanical engineering, metal production, metalworking and processing, the electrical engineering industry, precision mechanics and optics, including medical technology, and other vehicle manufacture (the aviation industry, rail vehicles and shipbuilding). In the ongoing year, they will be investing around 9 percent more in expanding and modernizing their production capacities.
Users in the United States are likewise planning to increase their capital investments, by 4.8 percent in the current year. In 2014, the rise is predicted to be an impressive one-tenth or more. But what technologies, what machines, what processes are the right ones? Answers to these questions, and the precise choices to make for optimum results, this is what trade visitors from the U.S. will find out at EMO Hannover 2013.
The most important customer categories for machine tools in the U.S. are the electrical engineering industry, the automotive industry, the mechanical engineering, metal production, and metalworking sectors, all of them major visitor groupings at the EMO. In 2011, more than 2,100 trade visitors and production experts from the U.S. travelled to Hanover for EMO.
U.S. customers and manufacturers will be showing the flag at EMO
For the U.S., too, economic pundits are predicting growth in this EMO year. Now that the turbulence in the financial markets has subsided, at least in the short term, and consumption is picking up again, some early indicators are pointing upwards again. The significantly improved asset situation of many Americans, and the high demand for replacements, are boosting vehicle sales. Population growth, an ageing society, and Western-style diseases are also leading to annual growth rates of between 4 and 6 percent in the U.S. medical technology segment, the world’s biggest market in this category anyway. Machine tool consumption is accordingly set to grow by 8 percent in 2013, to reach around $9.4 billion. Market growth is being driven primarily by the following sectors: electrical engineering, precision mechanics, optics and mechanical engineering. The U.S. imports around 67 percent of its machine tool requirements, which means it’s vital for customers from the country’s industrial segment to visit EMO 2013 in Hannover to learn more about ongoing trends and innovations in the metalworking sector from all over the world.
As exhibitors, too, the U.S., one of the leading producer nations and the world’s fourth largest market for machine tools, is always very well represented at EMO. In 2011, 57 firms showcased their products for the global market on around 3,100 square meters of exhibition space. As a major exporting nation, the U.S. needs its manufacturers to show the flag at the world’s premier trade fair for this sector. In Hannover, they will also be meeting their customers from Europe in large numbers. With a share of 42 percent and over 50 percent growth since 2009 to most recently$ 546 million, Europe is an important growth market for U.S. manufacturers.
In addition, however, more than a third of the international trade visitors to EMO are also Asian and American customers. “At EMO, manufacturers and visitors from the U.S. will meet the entire world of metalworking. So for anyone in the U.S. who has anything to do with machine tools, visiting and exhibiting at EMO is a definite must,” is the verdict of Wilfried Schäfer from the VDW.
For more information about EMO, please contact: Donna Hyland at Hannover Fairs USA at +1 (908) 735-0559 or dhyland@hfusa.com.
