Instrumentation Monthly Test | Measurement | Control
The AMA Association for Sensors and Measurement (AMA) polled its members on the economic development in January on the economic development in 2017. The responses of the AMA members show a significant positive overall development. For the current year, the sensor industry projects a further growth in turnover of eight per cent. The AMA members are planning to increase their investments by 13 per cent, compared the results of the previous year. Thanks to the positive outlook, 80 per cent of the enterprises state that they want to hire more engineers.
The prevailing mood is based on a very positive development in revenue during the previous year, in which the sensor industry generated an cumulative rise in turnover of nine percent compared to the previous year. Thus, the AMA members significantly exceeded the previous average of six percent growth in turnover.
The overall good economic development reflects the high investment readiness in the sensor industry. Last year the AMA members invested 18 per cent more than in the previous year. For the current fiscal year, the sector counts on a further increase in investments of 13 per cent.
Only the sensor industry’s export quota was retrogressive during last year, declining by seven percent compared to the previous year. Particularly affected are the foreign central European countries with a drop of six per cent. It seems that the AMA members are generating a considerable part of the increasing revenue in the booming German market.
Tax Funding in the German Federal Republic for Research
For a number of years now, the sensor sector has shown great investment readiness. In the era of digitisation, sensors and sensor systems are considered to be the key industries for the highly industrialised German republic. The sector, characterized by medium-sized enterprises, has already invested heavily in research and development, but is nevertheless ready to invest even more if tax funding measures were to be implemented for research and development in Germany, according to the AMA poll.
“The good economic development of the sensor industry shows that sensors and measurement are still gaining in significance and continue to be the key for innovative technical products,” says Thomas Simmons, general manager of the AMA Association for Sensors and Measurement, commenting on the annual statistics in the sector. “Complementing this development, the AMA Association has recently published the study Sensor Technologies 2022, which illustrates the opportunities in new fields of technology for sensor development. These trends reflect the increasing importance of sensors and measurement for the industrial site Germany. The resulting increase in demand is reflected in the significantly growing statistics on our sector.”
