News › Ger­man pho­to­nics sec­tor · signi­fi­cant sales growth in 2022

RECORD SALES OF 56 BILLION EUROS GENERATED – OUTLOOK FOR 2023 CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC – SUPPLY CHAIN DIFFICULTIES AND HIGH COSTS WEIGH ON THE SECTOR

In 2022, Germany’s appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 pho­to­nics manu­fac­tu­r­ers were able to build on the suc­cess of the pre­vious year and again achieve dou­ble-digit growth. Based on a sur­vey by PHOTONICS GERMANY, the alli­ance bet­ween the Ger­man indus­try asso­cia­tion SPECTARIS and Optec­Net Deutsch­land, total sales increased by more than 18 per­cent in nomi­nal terms com­pared to 2021. This cor­re­sponds to a value of 56 bil­lion euros, a record tur­no­ver for the indus­try. The result was dri­ven equally by strong dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness, each with an increase of around 18 per­cent. Against the back­ground of the sharp rise in pri­ces, the result is some­what rela­ti­vi­zed, but can still be con­side­red a suc­cess. As a dri­ver of new inno­va­tive areas within its appli­ca­tion mar­kets, pho­to­nics is bene­fiting from their above-average growth rates.

Ano­ther reason for the strong increase was the once again posi­tive US busi­ness. Ger­man pho­to­nics exports to the industry’s second most important tar­get coun­try increased by around 23 per­cent in 2022. Among other things, the com­pa­nies bene­fi­ted from the weak euro and the US eco­no­mic sti­mu­lus pro­grams. The great importance of inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness is reflec­ted in the unch­an­ged high export ratio of 73 per­cent: 40.7 bil­lion euros in sales were gene­ra­ted abroad. Based on offi­cial for­eign trade figu­res, China is by far the most important tar­get coun­try for Ger­man pho­to­nics, fol­lo­wed by the USA and Japan.

As a result of the posi­tive sales deve­lo­p­ment, the num­ber of employees rose for the second time in a row by nine per­cent to now 191,800. »This plea­sing deve­lo­p­ment now repres­ents an enorm­ous chall­enge for many com­pa­nies, as the growth poten­tial can alre­ady no lon­ger be fully tap­ped due to a lack of suf­fi­ci­ent skil­led workers,« empha­si­zes Dr. Bern­hard Ohnes­orge, Chair­man of Pho­to­nics at SPECTARIS and Mana­ging Direc­tor of Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH.

Over­co­ming sup­ply chain dif­fi­cul­ties, espe­ci­ally in the semi­con­duc­tor sec­tor, con­ti­nues to be at the top of the com­pa­nies‹ agen­das. The situa­tion is not expec­ted to ease in the short term. The sharp rise in costs is also weig­hing on the indus­try. Ohnes­orge: »Loo­king ahead to 2023, Ger­man manu­fac­tu­r­ers are com­pa­ra­tively cau­tiously opti­mi­stic and anti­ci­pate rene­wed but some­what wea­ker growth in the order of around ten percent.«

Regard­less of the gene­ral eco­no­mic uncer­tain­ties that curr­ently exist, the growth poten­tial of pho­to­nics with its above-average R&D rate of almost ten per­cent con­ti­nues to be enorm­ous. For quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies alone, total annual sales growth of 20 per­cent is expec­ted by 2030. Other appli­ca­tion areas of pho­to­nics are run­ning at full speed, such as medi­cal tech­no­logy, auto­no­mous mobi­lity and semi­con­duc­tor equip­ment. Others are at the begin­ning of their deve­lo­p­ment, such as pre­cis­ion far­ming in the con­text of the digi­ta­liza­tion of agri­cul­ture. Accor­ding to a study by SPECTARIS and Messe Mün­chen, pre­cis­ion far­ming will incre­asingly become an essen­tial cor­ner­stone of sus­tainable nut­ri­tion for the world’s popu­la­tion. Accor­din­gly, pho­to­nics sales in this still young field are expec­ted to grow by around 15 per­cent annu­ally in the coming years alone.