Impact of COVID-19 on welding & cutting equipment industry

By OEM Update Editorial November 4, 2020 11:49 am IST

Welding and cutting equipment are critical components in almost all of today’s worksites. As per a Persistence Market Research report, “The market of welding and cutting equipment is expected to grow at a substantial rate through 2020. Some of the major drivers contributing the overall market growth of welding and cutting equipment include increasing demand from the energy, automotive and construction industries. Slow growth of the ship building, aerospace and defense industries are expected to pose challenge to the growth of welding and cutting equipment market.”

The report adds, “Countries that are part of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are considered to record the fastest market growth in the coming years.”

Laser welding offers several technical advantages, such as deep narrow welds, minimal distortion, and ease of automation, over conventional welding procedures. According to a report published by Technavio, the global laser welding machine market size is expected to grow by USD 246.50 million.

Commenting on the impact of COVID-19 on Indian industries, V.V. Kamath, Managing Director, Fronius India Pvt Ltd said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has affected worldwide and all the industries are having the strain due to the effect of the same. However the governments have taken a lot of steps in improving the situation. In India, the government has put in lots of efforts in promoting the manufacturing sector with the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ schemes and also announcing special focus on MSMEs with special schemes. This has helped the manufacturing industries a lot to improve the situation. Also after a long time, the automotive industry is also reviving and the year-on-year comparison is showing positive growth.”

Like many other industries, welding and cutting equipment industry has also got affected due to COVID-19. Highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on welding and cutting equipment industry, he said, “As far as the welding and cutting equipment industry is concerned, we are directly connected with the manufacturing industries. The manufacturing industry has few challenges like the migrant labour, uncertainty of the future and thereby lack of investment on capital equipment and also the inconsistency in the orders from OEMs etc. With all these now the industry is reviving slowly and meeting the challenges.”

Manufacturing industry has few challenges like the migrant labour, uncertainty of the future and thereby lack of investment on capital equipment and also the inconsistency in the orders from OEMs etc.
V.V. Kamath, Managing Director, Fronius India Pvt Ltd