Deeply Analyzing the Situation of Domestic Sensor Market

Date:2016-09-20 Click:

<The article was transferred from Instruments Information Network>

With the “Made in China 2025”, “Industry 4.0” “Internet of Things” being brought up, China’s manufacturing industry is facing the challenge of reform, especially there is higher requirements towards the development of intelligence, informatization and networking of analyzing instruments and sensors in order to detect real time more flexible, more accurately,, faster and more reliably.
So, what’s the industry situation, market pattern and future development outlook of sensor industry in China?
Industry situation
The sensor market in China has been continuously increasing in recent years, with the speed of over 20%. Four fields of application of sensors are industry and auto electronic products, communication electronic products, special equipment of consumer electronic products.
In 2012, overall scale of China sensor industry development got enlargement gradually, which was applied in auto industry, including sensor application in auto tyres, ABRS, chassis system, engine running management system, flue gas and air quality control system, ABS, vehicles travel safety system, auto anti-theft system, engine combustion control system, auto positioning system and other systems.
Deeply analyzing domestic sensor market situation
Other than that, there are new applications for China’s sensor on other fields, such as industry control field, environment protection field, facility agriculture, multi-media image field and other fields. Reviewing China’s sensor industry, although the development is fast, there exist some unfavorable factors, i.e. on the aspect of product technology, industry foundation is weak, science and technology is disjointed with the production, product technology level is generally low, product category is not complete and the research and development capability of enterprise product is weak.
However, on the other hand, our country made strategies and policies in favor of the development of sensor industry constantly, whole equipment system market develops rapidly throughout the year and new technology appears frequently, which are all become favorable factors of sensor development. 
Market capacity
As being displayed on China Sensor Market Situation Survey and Development Trend Analyzing Report (2016-2020) issued by China Industry Survey Website, under the support of the government, our country’s sensor technology and the industry has got big achievement. Domestic sensor industry belongs to “Two-plus Engineering”. i.e.: under the guide of policy of accelerating the strength and development, China sensing elements and sensor production base was built.
At present, there are three sensor production bases domestically, they are: Anhui Base, which focus on building up force, photosensitive economy of scale; Shanxi Base, which set up Shanxi Province Sensitive Technology Industry Group Company in February of 1990, mainly focusing on building up voltage sensitive, heat sensitive, auto electronic economy of scale; Heilongjiang Base, focusing on building up air, humidity sensitive economy of scale.
Currently, there have been more than 1700 enterprises specialized in producing and researching and developing sensors, among which, more than 50 enterprises engage in micro system research and production. Meanwhile, sensors are more and more applied in various fields relevant to social development and people’s life, such as industrial automation, agriculture modernization, space technology, military engineering, robot technology, resource development, ocean detection, environment monitoring, security, medical diagnosis, communication and transportation, household appliances, etc. 
According to the statistics, till 2015, the overall economy of scale of Internet of Things in China will reach 750 billion yuan, sensor industry will get benefit from it directly. According to the prediction, Chinese sensor market will develop fast and steadily in 5 years, under the power of great increase of Internet of Things market scale, in 2015, Chinese sensor market scale can be seen to reach around 121.3 billion yuan.
Market pattern
Manufacturer of sensors in China are mainly located at Yangtze River delta, forming the pattern of focusing on central cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Shenyang and Xi’an.
Yangtze River delta: focusing on Shanghai, Wuxi, Nanjing, forming generally completed sensor production system including heat sensitive, magnetic sensitive, image, weigh, photo electricity, temperature, air-sensitive and its associated industry.
Pearl River delta: focusing on Shenzhen central city, together with foreign investment enterprises in neighbouring medium and small cities, to form sensor industry system focusing on heat sensitive, magnetic sensitive, ultrasonic and weighing.
Northeast area: focusing on Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin, mainly producing MEMES force sensitive sensor, air-sensitive sensor and humidity sensitive sensor.
Beijing and Tianjin area: focusing on universities and colleges, researching and developing new type sensors, filling the gap for some fields in China. Micrometer/nanometer national major labs have been established in Beijing. Central area: focusing on Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Taiyuan, with the pattern of close combination of industry-university-research, on the aspect of PTC/NTC heat-sensitive resistance, induction type digital liquid level sensor and air sensor, the development is good.
Furthermore, with the rising of Internet of Things, in other areas like Shanxi, Sichuan and Shandong, the development of sensor industry is fast.
Core issures
First, we need core technology and basic capability, our creative ability is weak. There is huge gap for high-end of high accuracy, high sensitivity analyzing, component analysis and special application. Middle and high level sensors are imported from foreign countries nearly 100%, 90% of chips are dependent on foreign technology. There is a lack of Research and development of new principal, new parts and new material sensors and the capability of industrialization in China.
Second, common key technology has not got a big breakthrough, there is a huge gap for the aspects of design technology, sealing technology, equipment technology. There is no a set of sensor software with its own intellectual property, the reliability of domestic sensors is 1-2 grade lower than similar products overseas. Packaging of sensors has not formed series, standard and unified port. The research and development and production of sensors is monopolized by foreign countries. 
Third, industry structure isn’t reasonable, as varieties, specifications, series are not complete, with low technological index. In China, sensor products usually cannot form series products, on the aspects of measuring accuracy, temperature feature, responding time, stability, reliability, their index has tremendous difference from foreign products. 
Fourth, the capability of enterprise is weak, from the aspect of current market share and market competitiveness index, foreign investment enterprises still play a leading role.
Over 95% of sensor enterprises in China belong on mini enterprise, with small scale, weak research and development ability and bad economy of scale. Aiming at solving those problems, what should we do to solve the problems? How do we enhance comprehensive competitiveness and participate in international competition step by step?
Outlook prediction
In 2015, the demand of sensors in China can reach 3.2 billion, and market scale can reach 121.3 billion yuan, which can form the new economic growth point for sensor industry and information industry. Besides the applications on industrial automation system, large major engineering accessories, auto electronics and home appliances, other applications on markets of modern agriculture, environment protection detection and management, medical hygiene and food detection are demanded tremendously.
In addition, domestic water resource system and home appliance products are on the stage of developing from traditional technology to energy saving and emission reduction technology, frequency-modulated AC and home dust collector, washing machine, solar water heater, especially large central AC have been applied with pressure control, temperature regulation system, which opens up broad space for sensors’ application on home AC, washing machine, dust collector, home water supply system, forming new market demand and application growth point in China.