In addition to the development of the product itself, the future development of PLC, to a large extent, depends on the development of users and the market. The existence of any product lies in the needs of users and the market. ARC Consulting Group's latest research shows that in the next five years, capital investment in automation products in various industries will continue to maintain strong momentum. The PLC China market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.4%, with market share expected to grow from nearly $750 million in 2006 to $1.3 billion in 2011.

     History of life

     At the Copenhagen climate conference, the low-carbon economy has become a hot spot for human attention. This means that a substantial increase in the productivity of fossil energy will be the main mode of economic innovation in the coming decades.

The industrial economy and society are centered on the production and sales of high-energy products, while the low-carbon economy society is centered on the provision and enjoyment of low-energy services. China's future may not be the same in the future, but the general direction will not deviate too far. What is certain is that the long-term and cheap use of traditional fossil energy and carbon dioxide emissions in the industrial economy era is moving away from us.

　　Promoting industrialization and information integration, and widely applying information technology are important to achieve industrial low carbon. In this process, the use of technological transformation to promote energy conservation and emission reduction, and improve production efficiency has become the primary task and task of all walks of life. Automation technology with energy saving and consumption reduction has become one of the technologies of concern after the “low carbon economy” advocated globally.

　　Automation is becoming an indispensable part of modern society with a trend of ultra-fast growth, and it is also a key to manufacturers' rapid service to the global market. Imanshu Shah, senior analyst at ARC Consulting Group, said: "It is clear that in an increasingly competitive global manufacturing environment, manufacturers must rely on automation to increase production and profitability."

　　For a long time, PLC has always been the main battlefield in the field of industrial automation control, providing a very reliable control scheme for a variety of automation control equipment, and forming a three-pronged trend with DCS and industrial PC. At the same time, PLC is also suffering from the impact of other technology products, especially the impact of industrial PC. But China's favorable business environment has prepared sufficient investment opportunities and conditions for factories from manufacturers around the world. Along with rising consumer demand, foreign direct investment has flowed into China, boosting China's manufacturing industry and driving the market for programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in China. ARC Consulting Group's latest research shows that in the next five years, capital investment in automation products in various industries will continue to maintain strong momentum. The PLC China market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.4%, with market share expected to grow from nearly $750 million in 2006 to $1.3 billion in 2011.

　　Steady growth during the crisis.

      The annual growth rate from 2007 to 2009 will be stable between 9.0% and 10.0%. Affected by the financial crisis, the market size of PLC in 2009 slightly shrank.

　　In recent years, Chinese OEM machinery manufacturers have been busy improving the automation level of domestic machinery and reducing their dependence on high-end foreign machinery products. Therefore, as a typical control product, PLC is widely used in textile machinery, plastic machinery, printing machinery, food machinery, packaging machinery, lifting machinery, machine tools and chemical machinery.

　　Affected by the crisis, China's OEM market was generally sluggish in 2008. In particular, the rising cost in the second half of the year, the sharp decline in exports and the shrinking domestic demand led to a large number of SMEs failing. Some large enterprises in the industry were seriously underemployed, directly affecting the demand for PLC in this market. Among them, the largest OEM market, the PLC application scale of textile machinery, was reduced to 630 million yuan, a year-on-year contraction of 17%. The PLC manufacturers who have been deeply involved in the industry have been hit hard.

　　In addition, the economic downturn has led to a decline in demand, which is a negative growth trend in elevators, textile machinery, construction machinery, power equipment, paper machinery, electronic manufacturing equipment, material handling, machine tools, HVAC, plastic machinery, rubber machinery and other applications. The metallurgical industry is the most popular project-oriented market for PLCs. It is dominated by large and medium-sized PLCs. Due to overcapacity,  shrinking demand and falling prices, PLC has continued to remain sluggish in the industry. 

　　Throughout 2009, PLC's application in most OEM industries will remain in a downturn, and only a few industries such as food machinery and packaging machinery that are not affected by the economic cycle can still maintain a certain growth. However, some industries such as automobiles, public facilities, mining, municipalities, etc are directly driven by national stimulus policies, and PLC demand is not reduced, becoming the backbone of PLC's steady growth.

　　In addition to the development of the product itself, the future development of PLC to a large extent depends on the development of users and the market. The existence of any product lies in the needs of users and the market. With the recovery of the economy and the promotion of national policies, the demand for the automation product market continues to be strong. Especially in the low-carbon era, manufacturing companies are fully aware of the role of automation products and their contribution to corporate profits and success in a highly competitive global market, and continue to increase capital investment in automation equipment.

　　PLC products can be used in discrete, process and hybrid automation products and maintain solid growth across all manufacturing industries. Based on the need for higher levels of automation and higher energy efficiency, manufacturing will increasingly use PLCs. In the manufacturing process, the increasing demand for adaptability and flexibility with the lowest production equipment life cycle cost provides an inexhaustible driving force for PLC innovation and development. The use of some emerging industries and the need for new energy generation, storage and infrastructure construction have undoubtedly brought huge opportunities to PLCs, especially in the downturn industries such as OEMs and building automation.