Laser companies both small and large are
feeling the recent surge of tech-sector M&A activity. Whether a
time-to-market or portfolio expansion play, the details reveal much about where
the laser industry is headed in the next decade—notwithstanding surprises
related to Brexit or U.S. elections.
Han's Laser Technology Industry Group Co., Ltd, a public company that is
established in 1996, has now become the flagship of Chinese national laser
industry and the world's famous laser equipment manufacturer. Web: https://us.hanslaser.net, Tel: (+1)
408-774-9428,Email: laser@hanslaser.com.
Once considered a solution in search of a
problem, the laser has become an important tool forging the next generation of
innovative technologies.1 And while many laser manufacturers are content to
focus on a pure-play laser portfolio and trump the worldwide economic slowdown2
with mid-single-digit sales growth, many laser—and increasingly,
non-laser—companies are keen to leverage the intellectual property (IP) value
of laser technology and speed time to market.
Unfortunately, it becomes more difficult to
forecast pure laser sales when a laser is just one component of a vertical or upstream
systems offering. The laser revenue gets lost in the shuffle, especially when
quarterly financial statements from multinational conglomerates seldom call out
the product or technology mix that contributes to the bottom-line numbers.
So, where have all the lasers gone? Whether
part of a technology portfolio acquired by a non-laser company seeking IP
differentiation and time-to-market leverage, absorbed by another pure-play
laser manufacturer looking to grow its product portfolio, or remaining intact
as a non-commodity specialty product that meets niche market demands, you can
bet that lasers are coming to an airport, hardware store, holiday display,
theatre, auto dealership, or dental/medical office near you.
For all that they do, lasers will continue
to be instrumental in existing and emerging markets worldwide that will, by our
estimates, grow laser sales to nearly $11.1 billion in 2017—a roughly 6.6%
increase from the revised $10.4 billion in sales for 2016. The secret is out:
laser-enabled technologies are big business, and some companies are ripe for
picking.
"Market consolidation is normal when
products mature and enter commodity status," says Markus Röhner, director
of sales in the Healthcare Business Unit of Jenoptik (Jena, Germany), whose
laser segment is focused on diode and ultrafast lasers for automotive, medical
technology, and materials processing applications. "Economic growth rates
have been stuck at a few percent in the last few years and in order to increase
sales and revenue, entering new markets is appealing. Even though product
complexity has increased over the last few decades, there is pressure to
shorten development times for new technologies—contrary trends that impose
'make or buy' decisions crucial to a smart development strategy."
Consider what has happened to light
detection and ranging (lidar) laser technologies, for example. "In August
of 2016, lidar company Quanergy Systems joined autonomous robotics startup Zoox
as a member of the billion-dollar-valuation unicorn club, Ford and Chinese
Internet company Baidu invested $150 million in Velodyne,3 and in October 2016,
Infineon complemented its radar IC portfolio with MEMS chips for solid-state
laser lidar by acquiring Innoluce," says Alex Lidow, founder and CEO of
Efficient Power Conversion Corporation (EPC; El Segundo, CA), manufacturer of
gallium-nitride (GaN) power semiconductors that enable lasers to emit and
detect photons 100X faster than silicon devices for centimeter ranging resolution.
"It's no secret that lidar has emerged as one of the hottest laser-enabled
technologies in recent memory, but what is surprising is how rapidly—a short 2
to 3 years—the technology went from Google-car curiosity to mainstream
driver-assist implementation."
There is a reason lidar is becoming
ubiquitous.4 The ranging capability of lasers cannot be matched by visual
camera technology-case in point: the Tesla car on Autopilot could have seen
that semi-trailer truck and avoided the tragic collision that made headlines in
late June 2016 had it been equipped with a lidar system.5
Despite this consumer setback, Lidow
predicts that merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the autonomous
vehicle market will continue as companies seek to differentiate their lidar
systems offering and enter the market faster with lower-cost lidar options. In
fact, the Cars 2025: Vol. 3 Global Investment Research report from the Goldman
Sachs Group (New York, NY) entitled "Monetizing the rise of Autonomous
Vehicles"6 predicts that lidar will be a $10.6 billion—yes, billion—market
by 2025.
In August 2016, Bloomberg (New York, NY)
reported that Uber's acquisition of self-driving technology company Otto7would
allow Uber to replace its 100 million human drivers with robot drivers as
quickly as possible. Lidow sees lidar as the sensor of choice not only for
self-driving cars and driver assistance, but also for drone navigation and
autonomous industrial robotics.
"Whenever you hear the word
'autonomy,' you can bet that optical sensing technology will be key and photons
will be running around somewhere," says Mark Bendett, strategist in the
Advanced Technology Laboratories of Lockheed Martin (Cherry Hill, NJ). Bendett
argues that the investment, consolidation, and M&A activity in the lidar
sector is consistent with the maturity, commoditization, and reliability of
laser technology—whether in the defense, medical, or industrial markets.
"Directed-energy weapons are moving from R&D experiments to real-world
deployment on ships as well as on other ground and air defense systems, and
ultrafast lasers are the workhorses of ophthalmology and materials
processing."
But lidar and LASIK surgery didn't pop up
overnight, Bendett emphasizes. "IMRA got it right with femtosecond fiber
laser technology8 for ophthalmic applications in the mid-1990s. Not only did
they manufacture a laser that machined human tissue, they also built tens and
then hundreds of lasers that each delivered identical performance parameters
over and over, year after year. And in 1992-1997, they prototyped autonomous
vehicle lidar systems that are just now cheap enough and reliable enough for
implementation on a commercial scale," he adds.
"Laser technology seems to come out in
bursts, but markets are driven by the dollar. Even though 3D holograms9 were
neat to laser technologists decades ago, the flat-screen experience will only
be replaced with something like holographic television when the technology is
cost-effective for the masses," says Bendett. "Lidar has finally
arrived as $80,000 system prices have dropped to $8000 and soon to just
hundreds of dollars. The flurry of laser M&A activity in the lidar sector
is following a historic progression wherein the 'invention' stage of a
technology is replaced by a 'reliability, incremental improvement, and
cost-reduction' stage."
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HAN'S LASER CORP.
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Phone: (+1) 408-774-9428
Fax: (+1) 669-900-4570
Email: laser@hanslaser.com
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