ANN ARBOR,MI — North American sales of machine vision components and systems grew to $2.3 billion in 2016, its highest annual total on record, according to statistics issued by AIA.

Total machine vision sales, which grew by one half of one percent, include sales of machine vision components and systems. The machine vision components category saw growth of one percent to $320 million in 2016. The leading growth categories for machine vision components in 2016 were cameras (3 percent), lighting (1 percent), and software (1 percent).

The machine vision systems category was flat in 2016 at $2.0 billion. Within machine vision systems, sales of smart cameras increased 13 percent to $326 million, while sales of application specific machine vision systems (ASMV) contracted by 2 percent to $1.6 billion.

The machine vision market in North America performed particularly well in the fourth quarter of the year, driven largely by increasing sales in three major product markets, smart cameras, component cameras, and ASMV systems. More specifically, the smart camera market saw a 20 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2015, marking its third consecutive quarter of year over year expansion. Similarly, component cameras and ASMV systems each grew by 17 percent over fourth quarter 2015.

“Forty-seven percent of industry experts are expecting the market to continue its growth in the first half of 2017, 43 percent believe sales will remain flat, and 10 percent percent expect a contraction,” said Alex Shikany, AIA’s director of market analysis. “Regarding the largest category, machine vision systems, 46 percent of survey respondents believe the category will increase, 44 percent expect stagnation, and 10 percent expect a decline. Stronger optimism is present regarding vision component markets, where 57 percent think sales will increase, 36 percent are expecting sales to be flat, and only seven percent expect declines.”

“Vision and imaging technology is playing a key role in the next wave of industrial evolution,” said AIA President Jeff Burnstein. “In today’s world of connected manufacturing, the industrial internet of things, and cloud-based computing, vision technology is providing critical data to these advanced automation systems and driving productivity up for manufacturers of all sizes across the globe.”