Global manufacturing, value added, increased from $5.953 trillion in 1997 to $13.933 trillion in 2018, as per the World Bank. This has been because of not only the booming population, but also advancements in production techniques, such as the introduction of automated conveyor belts, computer numeric control (CNC) machines, and robots. Such equipment, which is now an important component of Henry Ford’s iconic assembly line, has made mass production possible, which has allowed companies to reduce their production costs and gain more revenue.

P&S Intelligence considers the burgeoning industrial production a key reason behind the growth of the stepper motor market size to $3.7 billion in 2030 from $2.5 billion in 2019, at a 3.4% CAGR between 2020 and 2030. Such motors allow for the accurate control of the motion speed and degree, which is why they are integrated widely in conveyor belts, product elevators and cranes, CNC machines, robots, and other machinery.

Apart from industrial equipment, such motors are used in medical equipment, packaging & labeling machinery, and consumer electronics and the telecommunications, robotics, and textile sectors. Among these, their usage in medical equipment, including ventilation systems, respirators, oxygen concentrators, blood analysis machinery, samplers, dispensing pumps, and medical scanners, is rather wide.

As a result, the demand for stepper motors would have definitely increased to some extent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the entire world entered a ventilator procurement spree. Moreover, since the lifting of the lockdowns, the demand for these machines in other industries has started rising again, while initiatives to technologically advance them have also resumed. For instance, input/output (I/O) terminals have been created for small motors, to amplify their operations.

Similarly, hybrid stepper motors have been developed for closed-loop motion control applications, while the number of cables for motion control interference has been reduced to one. Another such advancement is miniature stepper motors, which are high in demand these days due to the reducing size of medical equipment and consumer electronics.