Looking at the European automation market and its suppliers, it becomes quite obvious that Europe has a large number of different players that either are specializing on specific automation topics, that are industry or application experts, or who are very focused companies with a solution portfolio addressing one specific vertical, or they are global broad solution providers. My colleague Florian Güldner also wrote an article about this (see link:European Automation Champions - Providing Knowledge, not Opinions).
However, in this article I would like to give a closer look at the ranking of these companies. It is quite common to rank these lists after the overall revenue the companies produce. Of course, there are more different ways to address this point of view, next to total revenues, like complete portfolio offering, technical specialty, or company focus. But to keep it simple, I would like stick to the common approach for now to make things easier. The revenues in the figure represent the top 20 companies’ revenues that ARC covers and collects through its large portfolio of market reports. Hence, the overall revenues are providing a very good insight into the ranking in regard to automation solutions and technology including software, hardware and services.
It's not surprising that the large solution providers, like Siemens, ABB, and Schneider Electric, are leading this ranking. They are global players covering basically all aspects of automation technology and end user industries. They all have a large installed base around the globe and a very strong service network. This provides them continuous access to the markets and big projects.
Also among the top companies is software giant SAP followed by drive specialist SEW closing the top 5 companies list. The rest of the top 20 companies are technology specialists like Sick or Lenze, or focused companies like IMI, Rotork or SAMSON. The difference in revenue size between the companies that are not in the top 5 ranking is very small. So, it’s not a matter of the strategic positioning of a company, but more of good business relationships to their client base to sustain and grow market shares.
What also became obvious is that the competitive environment is on the one hand very fragmented, meaning that there are a lot of suppliers from small to larger companies that compete in this high-end European market. On the other hand, there are a few specialists with a unique selling proposition that are not in a very competitive environment, but they might be limited in market opportunities due to the niche markets they are addressing.
The following table shows the product offering of the top 30 European automation companies. This highlights the diverse product portfolios Europe has to offer.
Overall, the European automation market is well positioned with solutions to any kind of application. It is also highly innovative making Europe a leading and competitive region in the global automation world.