Turnover figures for the Italian automation and process automation sector in 2018 show a turnover of 5.29 billion euros, up 6% from the previous year, 2017.

 

The Italian automation technology provider industry has not only fully recovered but exceeded - over ten percentage points - the levels of business volume expressed in the pre-crisis period. The performance recorded in 2018 benefited from the positive contribution of both the foreign channel and domestic demand.

 

Thanks to the two leading and leading markets in automation technology, food and mechanical engineering, as well as Oem's, primarily packaging and machine tools, sales have been positive with excellent performance of networking, telecontrol and, especially wireless (+ 22% in 2018 vs 2017).

 

Unlike the trends highlighted in previous years, domestic demand in 2017 has contributed to the growth of the dominant sector with respect to that offered by foreign markets. This trend has also positively reflected the presence of targeted instruments for the purchase of instrumental goods. More generally, demand across the industrial automation technology chain is confirmed by the growing market focus of innovative solutions. In this context, the process of renewal of manufacturing processes is central to the development of the new Industry 4.0 paradigm.

 

The foreign channel maintains an important role for the growth of the sub-fund. Looking at direct exports, in 2018, foreign sales of industrial automation technologies showed an annual increase of 2.5%. This trend has positively reflected the tenure of European demand, which aggregates almost 60% of the exports of the sub-sector. Germany and Spain are among the European markets that have expressed greater acceptance of the technological offer of Made in Italy. Looking at the extra European markets, in the course of the year, different trends emerged across the different geographical areas, with the high instability of the scenario.

 

The focus of our 2019 reference market is cyber security for industrial production networks that will be the largest development application for the coming years, and for cyber security first of all is the ability to design predictive and reactive systems that anticipate Computer threats or, in any case, allow effective response measures to be taken once an attack has occurred.

 

A capacity involving all players in the chain, users and technology providers in a highly promising IT security market ($ 75 billion worldwide) and is expected to double in 2020.