Global Military lasers see robust growth and soon will be over 1 billion in research and sales

Automotive, aerospace, energy, electronics, and communications (smartphones) materials processing applications continued to drive strong industrial laser sales. Of the three major industrial laser categories, the Micro category, which includes all applications using lasers with less than 500 Watts of power, climbed to 35% of the total laser market thanks to 105% growth in the sector that included display applications requiring excimer lasersCoherent alone said in its third fiscal quarter 38 ended July 2, 2016, "As expected, we received significant orders for flat panel annealing lasers including a single order in excess of $100 million." The Macro category, including laser processes requiring over 500 Watts of power, is the largest (at 47%) of all laser revenues, thanks to fiber lasers that comprise 44% of all Macro revenues. And finally, Marking (including engraving) contributed about 18% of all laser revenues, with solid growth continuing at 3.9% dominated by fiber lasers representing 49% of total sales.



Laser sales for R and D applications will trend similarly to the global R and D spending rate of 3.5% in 2016, growing at a slightly better 4.2% to 471.4 million in 2016 compared to 2015. Companies like NKT Photonics (Birkerid, Denmark), who acquired Fianium (Southampton, England) for around $29 million in early 2016 to strengthen its position in ultrafast fiber lasers and supercontinuum lasers for scientific and metrology markets, is betting on a strong-or at least slow and steady- R and D growth market to solidify future sales. The military segment, however, offers a brighter laser future. For 2016, laser spending in the military segment reached $406.0 million, a 9.4% increase over 2015 spending levels amid improved demand for laser based military technology.

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