IO-Link Market - Forecast(2024 - 2030)

IO-link Market size was valued at $5.3 billion in 2020 and it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 18.51% during the period 2021-2026, owing to high penetration of industry 4.0 across industries. IO-link is a point-to-point serial communication protocol that includes an IO-Link master and one or several IO-Link devices. This system is highly being used for increasing the level of efficiency of industrial automated processes. Thus high demand for automation drives the growth of IO-Link market. Moreover, its ability to offer support and sustainability for various Fieldbus and Ethernet communication protocol plays a major role in the growth of this market. Furthermore, the government’s initiative to promote the adoption of industrial automation such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), MES, SCADA and IoT sensors (such as photoelectric sensors, proximity sensors and sensor nodes), is one of the primary factors augmenting the demand for IO-Link. This technology also reduces the overall operational cost and increases the operational efficiency. Hence, the above-mentioned factors will drive the growth of IO-link industry during the forecast period.

The report: “IO-link Market Forecast (2021-2026)”, by IndustryARC, covers an in-depth analysis of the following segments of the IO-link Market.

By Type: IO-Link Wired, IO-Link Wireless

By Component: IO-Link Master(PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, Modbus-TCP, EtherCAT, Multiprotocol and Others), IO-Link Devices(Sensor Nodes (Position sensor, Temperature sensor, Pressure sensor, Vibration sensor and Others), Modules, Actuators, RFID Read Heads and Others).

By Application: Machine Tool, Handling and Assembly Automation, Intra-logistics, Packaging and Others

By End User Industry: Process Industry (Oil & Gas, Chemical, Power and others), Discrete Industry (Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Semiconductor & Electronics, Machine Manufacturing and Others)and Hybrid Industry (Pharmaceutical, Metal & Mining, Food & Beverage, Cement And Glass and Others)

By Geography: North America (US, Canada, Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe), APAC (Japan, China, India, Australia, South Korea, rest of APAC), South America (Brazil, Argentina, rest of South America) and  RoW (Africa, Middle East)

By component, this market is segmented intoIO-Link Master and IO-Link Devices. IO-link master segment is further segmented intoPROFINET, EtherNet/IP, Modbus-TCP, EtherCAT, Multiprotocol and Others, and IO-Link Devices segmented into Sensor Nodes, Modules, Actuators, RFID Read Heads and others. IO-link master held major IO-link market share around 35.99% in 2020, owing to rapid industrialization, increasing penetration of automation and industry 4.0 across sectors. For instance, in June 2019, UiPath published a report on present and future progress of automation and according to the survey report, 90% organizations are already using the automation technology to conduct their business processes. High adoption rate of automation across industries creates huge demand for IO-link masters and to fulfill such demand major players of this market are launching new products as well as investing heavily for the advancement of this solution. In June 2019, Contec Co. introduced a new IO-Link master solution CPSL-08P1EN, which supports use with four types of industrial Ethernet-based system protocols, including CC-Link IE Field Basic, EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP and PROFINET. Hence, the above mentioned factors will drive the demand for IO-link Maters during the forecast period.

Based on end-user industry, IO-link Market is segmented into process industry, discrete industry and hybrid industry. Hybrid industry is sub-segmented into pharmaceutical, metal & mining, food & beverage, cement and glass and other industries. Pharmaceutical industry is the fastest growing segment in IO-link market and estimated to grow at a CAGR of 19.06% during forecast period 2021-2026, specifically due to the increasing investment in this sector. According to the report of Invest-India, the pharmaceutical sector is analyzed to reach $65 billion by 2024 and to reach $120 billion by the year 2030. Furthermore, rapid adoption of industry 4.0, increasing demand for reliable as well as sustainable communication and remote monitoring system in this industry are the key factors behind the growth of this market. IO-Link offers end-to-end communication to the whole process operation which reduces the overall downtime of the machines, which reduces the overall operational and maintenance cost. Moreover, out-break of COVID-19 has a positive impact on the growth of pharmaceutical industry. The rise in COVID cases and the growing health awareness among public are the key factors behind this high investment that creates the massive requirement of IO-link solutions, which in turn drives the growth of IO-link market. Hence, rising investment in pharmaceutical industry is being seen as the opportunity for the players operating in the IO-linkmarket during 2021-2026.

Europe dominated the IO-Link Market in 2020 with a share close to 30.18%, followed by North America and APAC. Moreover, it is estimated that Europe will have a significant amount of market growth during the forecast period 2021-2026, owing to technological advancement, early adoption of this technology and government’s initiatives for the development of smart factories. Rising demand for IoT enabled connected devices, industrial automation are the key factors fuelling the growth of this market. Furthermore, this technology has a well-established customer base in this region. Apart from that, continuous development, new advanced product launches of the technology also plays a major role towards the market growth. Europe-based companies such as Siemens AG and General Electric is one of the largest manufacturers of this technology in the world. Devices produced in Siemens are generally equipped with PROFINET and this company dominates the European market. In November 2020, a Germany-based company, Igus joined PI organization, for advancing the research of PROFINET technology in dynamic applications. In February 2019, SICK announced the launch of Safe EFI-pro System, which offers standard industrial Ethernet-based safety network integration for highly-adaptive as well as dynamic safeguarding in automated production and logistics environments to SIL 3/PLe.This kind of strategic movements and technologically advanced product launches will drive the market for this region during the forecast period.

Increasing adoption of automation across industries is one of the major drivers for IO-Link, triggering the growth for this technology. Integration of automation system across industries offers greater efficiency, higher reliability, enhanced asset management, production boost, better process speed and cost effectiveness, which is accelerating the amount of investments made by organizations to remain productive. This in turn, drives the growth of IO-Link technology, as this technology is a point-to-point serial communication protocol, which is highly being used for communicating with sensors and actuators in industrial automation processes. In July 2020, for digital industrial transformation, Carlo Gavazzi announced the launch of its new IIoT-enabled IO-Link Masters, YL212 and YN115, that supports leading industrial Ethernet-based system protocols including EtherNet/IP, PROFINET IO and MODBUS TCP access. This product has advanced features such as embedded web interface and OPC UA, which offers full remote access, control of the IO-Link masters and connected devices. This product also offers reliability, transparent process data transmission into the cloud-based systems from the sensors and actuators along with access to the data, attached to the smart devices through the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and OPC UA clients. This type of product with such unique features fuels the growth of his market. PI Organization’s recent research report shows that, the performance of Profinet RT fulfills 95% timing requirements of industry-based automation. Hence, the adoption of automation will drive the growth of IO-link market during the forecast period.

IO-Link is an open source interface, which makes this technology a Fieldbus independent solution. It can be integrated into all the fieldbus systems including PROFINET, AS-i, CANopen, CC-Link, PROFIBUS, EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, DeviceNet, Interbus, Powerlink and others. Different organizations use different networking protocols for their systems, which make the fieldbus-independent IO-Link more suitable for the companies, as it allows the businesses to connect their products to different systems and control level devices including Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and others. This in turn, saves the investments that are already made by the manufacturers, plant operators, machine builders and others, on the systems. Even when the organizations decide to migrate from one technology to other technology, IO-Link makes the process cost effective, by reducing the overall cost. In January 2019, Korenix introduced a new cost-effective Profinet supported, Fieldbus gateway, JetLink 1302, which can transmit the data faster among the devices and provide seamless communication between fieldbus and industrial Ethernet communication protocol. Hence, the fieldbus independency of IO-Link is one of the major growth drivers of this market.

IO-link technology is vulnerable to various security threats such as cross site request forgery (CSRF), reflected cross-site scripting (XSS), blind command injection, denial-of-service (DoS) issues, spear phishing and others, which hinders the growth of this market. Furthermore, in February 2020, OTORIO security researchers discovered a security weakness in PROFINET-IO stack, which is responsible for handling the packets that being used in device management. If a device is overloaded with multiple diagnostic packets, it may create a security threat that allows the attackers to send the devices into a denial-of-service (DoS) condition, which can create disruption in operational processes. Many industrial devices such as devices produced by Siemens, MoxaEDS Ethernet switches and others; that rely on Siemens PROFINET-IO stack are highly being affected. Hence, the above mentioned factor creates security related issues that will hinder the growth of this market during 2021-2026.

Partnerships and acquisitions along with product launches are the key strategies adopted by the players in the IO-link Market. As of 2020, IO-link Market top 10 companies includesSiemens AG, Hans Turck GmbH & Co. KG, Balluff GmbH, Rockwell Automation, Inc.,SICK AG, Omron Corporation, Pepperl+Fuchs SE,Schneider Electric, General Electric,B&R Industrial Automation GmbH among others.