“IPG's revenue in the third quarter of 2015 reached a new high, up 22% year-on-year to a record $243.5 million,” said Dr. Valentin Gapontsev, CEO of IPG Photonics. “The impact of exchange rate changes is about 12% lower. This means that if the exchange rate remains at the same level as last year, IPG's revenue in the third quarter of 2015 will increase by 34% year-on-year. Our performance continues to grow strongly, indicating IPG fiber Lasers are continuing to penetrate existing and new applications through our diverse and expanding product lines."
IPG is implementing a variety of strategies, including expansion of existing products and markets, developing new products, applications, business landscapes, customer and product diversity to ensure strong growth in company performance.
In terms of existing products and markets, European cutting OEM customers' contributions in the third quarter increased significantly. They also increased the power of lasers to increase processing speed and increase cutting thickness. In the process of OEM switching from traditional laser to fiber laser, IPG has won two OEMs by surpassing another fiber laser manufacturer with its first-class products. In addition, battery soldering is also an application that contributes to growth. Battery applications can be found everywhere, from mobile phones, electronic devices, hybrid cars to recent applications in the power grid. IPG has a number of collaborative projects with several battery manufacturers.
IPG's new products are being promoted and performing well. For example, the QCW series is accelerating the replacement of lamp-pumped YAG lasers. Since the beginning of 2015, sales of QCW series lasers have increased by 62%, and the largest growth in the third quarter. Another recently released product, the three-spot fiber laser system for brazing in the automotive industry, has also gained market momentum. The market has shown interest in this unique product. In fact, IPG has recently won a competition with a manufacturer of brazing products. This brazing application represents an important opportunity for IPG in the coming years.
While expanding its product range and technical features, IPG is also expanding the range of applications that these products can serve. These include digital laser cinema projection. Our strategy is to replace the Xenon bulb source with an ultra-high lumen laser projector to improve the viewer's experience based on industry needs. In the third quarter, we successfully completed the customer demonstration of the first new and most advanced RGB laser technology platform based on non-speckle watt-level red, green and blue lasers. We look forward to delivering the prototype system in the first quarter of 2016. We are also making significant breakthroughs in testing and developing UV and ultrafast fiber lasers for precision machining. We currently have several long-term testing projects, and we expect to release more of these products next year.
Regarding products, customers and business landscapes, IPG's unique application of ultra-high power lasers has gained market momentum. In the third quarter, we delivered another 50 kW laser for material testing to NASA (National Aeronautics and Astronautics). In addition, we benefited from the 50 kW welding system delivered in the second quarter, and another customer has already inquired us about the 50 kW laser for welding. In Russia, we developed and tested on-site pipe welding workstations for oil and gas drilling and infrastructure development. In addition, we continue to conduct non-material processing applications such as advanced science, medical and telecommunications, as these non-material processing applications grew by as much as 168% in the third quarter, which represents an important opportunity for us.
In China, IPG is constantly advancing OEM diversification to reduce customer homogeneity. IPG has further deepened its cooperation with several major integrators. From a regional perspective, we have added regional offices to meet business needs. Wuhan, which is dominated by the automotive, heavy industry, electronics, optics, pharmaceutical, chemical, food and beverage industries, is considered to be the economic, financial and transportation hub of Central China. In the fourth quarter, our office in Wuhan will be put into operation. In addition, we look forward to setting up new offices in Brazil, Mexico and Chile to expand the application center in Silicon Valley to develop more precision machining applications for key customers.
Under the premise that the potential growth rate has been slowed down in China's uncertain economic situation, we have expected IPG growth in 2016 to be at least 10%-15%. We believe that even with many companies claiming that they intend to enter the fiber laser market, IPG is still competitive in the competition with its high power, QCW series and new, more advanced products. IPG is the world's largest supplier of laser light sources, with a unique business model and a history of innovation that give IPG many advantages to achieve these goals.
Laser sales for material processing increased by 16% year-on-year to $223.8 million, accounting for 92% of sales in the third quarter. In material processing lasers, high-power lasers for cutting become the driving force for high growth, followed by lasers for additive manufacturing or laser sintering, and sales of lasers for welding have grown steadily.
Other markets, including advanced applications, telecommunications and medical applications, grew by approximately 168%, accounting for approximately 8% of IPG revenue. Its growth is mainly driven by the drive of advanced applications and telecommunications applications. Advanced applications are mainly from the needs of the government and the aerospace industry.
Sales of high-power lasers accounted for 54% of the total, up 24% year-on-year to $130.9 million. This is mainly due to laser cutting – our largest-scale application continues to be strong sales, as we have been increasing our penetration of cutting OEMs. Pulse laser sales fell by 9% year-on-year, but pulse laser unit sales increased by 10%. It is worth noting that the price competition of pulsed lasers seems to have slowed down. In addition, the substantial increase in the QCW series of IPG for precision machining also has an impact on the order quantity of pulsed lasers. Mid-power laser sales increased by 31% year-on-year to $27 million, accounting for 11% of total revenue. Precision machining applications, particularly cutting sheet/wall materials and additive manufacturing, and laser sintering applications will continue to drive sales growth for medium power lasers. Although we have found that competition in this market has increased, we have won competition with another fiber laser manufacturer. The QCW laser, which is mainly used for precision welding, drilling and glass cutting, achieved sales of US$19.8 million, an increase of 19.7% over the same period last year. This is the biggest growth since we launched the QCW series of lasers, and they are accelerating the replacement of lamp-pumped YAG lasers. Sales of other products such as laser amplifiers, green lasers, mid-infrared lasers, integrated laser systems and optical components increased 101% year-on-year to $17.1 million, benefiting primarily from advanced applications in telecommunications applications.
From a regional perspective, Asia grew by 15% year-on-year, with China increasing by 29% year-on-year to US$93.5 million. In China, the main driver of growth is the strong demand for cutting and precision machining. In Japan, sales increased by 21% year-on-year to reach $13.2 million. We got a super big single from a Japanese mainstream cutting OEM. We also delivered several kilowatt-class single-mode lasers for advanced applications to an Asian customer.
Despite the steady global environment in Europe, we sold $76.5 million and achieved a year-on-year growth of 27%. The main drivers of growth are cutting, laser sintering and welding applications. North America achieved a 44% year-on-year growth rate and sales of $36.3 million. The growth contribution was mainly due to advanced applications, telecommunications applications, and material processing in traditional cutting and welding applications. In the third quarter, we delivered a 50 kW fiber laser for a government application and completed a large diode order for advanced applications from US customers.
