TOP OF THE CHARTS: Instrument News publishes its 2020 Leaderboard
Data taken from Instrument News (IN) Volume 12 Issue 9 2020: Leaderboard 2020: Charting a fragmented industry
Instrument News (IN) published its updated Leaderboard for the analytical instrumentation industry in issue 12 (September). This annually updated report details the Leaderboard of over 500 companies constituting the bulk of the global analytical instrumentation industry, including developers and manufacturers of instruments and laboratory equipment, their R&D and OEM partners and distributors.
Published now for more than 4 decades, the IN Leaderboard represents the scale, size and technical breadth of this industry, and is a good barometer for both industry health and trends. 2020 is particularly interesting to view, with the revenue changes impacted during this year.
Stefan Fritsch, the editor and publisher of Instrument News, explains: “We have been tracking the industry for many decades (that is why I am so grey!). We go through annual reports and also invite companies to submit their own financial performance figures for inclusion. The compilation of the Leaderboard is a mammoth annual event and represents a snap-shot of the changes both up and down of the industry.”
So, who is where in 2020?
“Of course, the top spot continues to be held by Thermo Fisher, which has been in that pole position for at least a decade, thanks to its strategy of acquisition. The second position has been held by Danaher for at least five years.”
The best of the rest includes a top 10 featuring (in no particular order) Waters, Agilent, Merck Millipore, and the only new entry Mettler Toledo. The closely fought after positions from 11-20 in the Leaderboard are all shifting and contains more risers than fallers, including Bruker, Roche Diagnostics, Spectris, Becton Dickinson etc.
All the above companies have over $1bn revenues.
The positions 41 through to 500+ (if you want the exact figure, just count!) are categorised by revenue bracket, falling quickly to report on companies between $1-3 million.
The reason the Leaderboard is so interesting is that it provides a checklist, especially for those companies with pots of cash who are looking to acquire new technologies. This is a repeated trend in the industry, and ultimately underpins the movers and shakers, pulling technologies and people to the top of the pile on merit.
Stefan explains: ‘The Leaderboard ranks companies by sales of analytical instruments, consumables and related revenues, in full-year 2019. Process analysis and environmental monitoring instrumentation are included, as are molecular diagnostics and analytical equipment for security screening or trace detection.”
It is interesting to see that more than 5% of this year’s Leaderboard consists of new entries, so companies that are included for the first time or about whom information has surfaced then enables an estimation of their revenues to be made.
The Leaderboard is available free of charge to anyone with a subscription to Instrument News.
The Scott Partnership provides support to global businesses operating in the life science and analytical instrumentation markets and can help you to penetrate global and local markets, including China, via our international footprint. We work closely with Instrument News, and will be happy to discuss helping companies to feature in the Leaderboard. Please contact us for information or to discuss how we can help with your challenges.
