After nearly two months of difficult fighting, the number of new confirmed cases of new coronavirus in China has been brought under control. However, the pandemic has begun to spread in more countries, especially in Europe, Iran, South Korea, and the United States, which have seen large-scale outbreaks. The WHO defines the new coronavirus as a "pandemic." U.S. stocks suffered an unprecedented two circuit breakers a week, which had a great negative impact on the global economic growth forecast in 2020.
The outbreak of the pandemic has brought a certain promotion to the development and reform of the public health system, and the downstream demand of the medical and pharmaceutical industry has gradually become a rigid demand. During the pandemic, masks and other medical protective equipment became popular products, and were even out of stock, which caused some machinery and equipment companies to switch to mask equipment across fields, especially in the laser industry. For example, Han's Laser, Zhengye Technology , Lixing Laser, etc. have been producing automatic mask production equipment.
In the previous period, due to the impact of the pandemic, many domestic factories were in a state of suspension of work and production, which had a certain impact on many domestic industries. However, although most domestic enterprises have resumed work one after another, recovery of the manufacturing industry will take some time. How much impact will this pandemic have on the development of the laser industry, a high-end manufacturing industry in China?
Looking back on 2018, the market size of China's industrial laser and related products reached 85.5 billion yuan, an increase of 18.6% year-on-year, and the growth has slowed down. Affected by the international situation and the ever-changing domestic environment, China's industrial production and sales growth has slowed down, manufacturing investment is insufficient, and the economy is under pressure. The capital market has led the world into fall in terms of overall performance throughout the year.
In 2019, China's economy was operating steadily, and the annual gross domestic product reached 99 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%. Generally speaking, it increased first and then declined. The first half of the year maintained a relatively rapid development momentum. In the second half of the year, due to the slowdown of industrial manufacturing and the pressure of the global economic and trade environment, the growth rate declined, and the impact of the trade war gradually appeared in the second half of the year. In general, the market size of China's industrial lasers and related products may reach more than 90 billion yuan in 2019, and the year-on-year growth rate has further slowed to single digits.
At the beginning of 2020, the new coronavirus pandemic spread to the whole country, which had a major impact on the domestic economy in the first quarter. However, the global pandemic will inevitably affect the global economic recovery, which will also have a major impact on the demand for China's laser overseas business and delivery and transportation, and temporarily hinder many export-oriented companies. As the companies grow, the overseas business of Chinese laser companies will inevitably be affected. In addition, more and more countries are adopting more stringent measures to combat the pandemic, and China's economic activity is almost static before repeating. Then the output of China's industrial manufacturing products will inevitably face challenges and will also lead to a decline in laser processing demand.
It is expected that under the current situation, the pandemic will have a certain impact on the domestic and foreign business shipments of China's lasers in the first half of the year, and there is great uncertainty. According to the current progress of pandemic prevention, China may be the first major economy to recover from the pandemic. Perhaps the main focus of China's laser industry business this year will be on the domestic market. In 2020, the growth rate of the industrial laser product market is expected to further decline, and even the optimistic prediction of the laser product market is to only achieve zero growth. There’s opportunity in the risk, as consumer electronics, power batteries, automobile industry, metal parts production, packaging, etc. are still key markets. Some companies focusing on large industries and custom laser applications in traditional industries may achieve breakthroughs and open up new territories.
Experts predict that the pandemic could end in June, and this requires the attention of countries and the adoption of effective measures to control the pandemic. China predicts that by the end of March it will basically end the domestic pandemic and switch to strict prevention of overseas imported cases. In addition, the country has successively introduced a series of supportive policies. With the pandemic prevention and control basically over, the country has resumed work and production, and the confidence of all social economies in the economic recovery will become increasingly obvious.
