Lasers have a wide range of applications, and the main application markets are material processing and communications. Lasers have been widely used in materials processing, communications, information processing, medical beauty, scientific research, military affairs, culture and education, etc., among which the fields of material processing and communications account for the largest proportion.
In the global laser application field in 2019, material processing and lithography, communications and storage are still the main global laser application markets.
Material processing and lithography market: including lasers for all types of metal processing (welding, cutting, annealing, drilling); lasers for semiconductor and microelectronics manufacturing (lithography, scribing, defect repair, drilling); Lasers for marking all materials; and lasers for other material processing (such as cutting and welding organics, rapid prototyping, micro processing, and grating manufacturing).
In 2019, the competitiveness of Chinese lasers in the international market will be further enhanced: Most of the fiber lasers produced in China are limited to the level of marking applications, but in recent years, with the advancement of Chinese laser production technology, Chinese companies can provide higher power laser products , Resulting in a sharp drop in the price of fiber lasers. On the other hand, the U.S. trade tariff policy has had a huge adverse effect on laser trade, and the market size of material processing and lithography has slightly decreased in 2019. It is expected that the material processing market share will remain stable in 2020.
Communication and optical storage market: Including all laser diodes used in telecommunications, data communication and optical storage applications, including pump sources for optical amplifiers.
According to Strategies Unlimited, the market size of communications and optical storage in 2019 was US$4.105 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 4.3%. The laser revenue of the communications market is affected by the industry cycle and is almost synchronized with the deployment of new and large-scale communications networks worldwide. As of 2018, the deployment of most 4G cellular networks has been completed, and the deployment of 5G networks has just begun, and the demand has not been fully released. With the gradual development of 5G networks in 2020, the scale of the communications market is expected to pick up.
