Local Networking Protocols still making limited progress in the Chinese Industrial Market
Date: 18 April 2011

Shanghai, China. 18th April, 2011.

Locally developed protocols for industrial networking are making only limited progress in China, according to a new report from IMS Research on industrial networking and Ethernet.

“The protocol associations are very important in the Chinese market; many of them have close connections with domestic institutes or local offices to serve local customers’ needs and promote the protocol” said analyst Alex Hong. “In China, people seem to be most responsive to reports of previous successful application cases and to the technology updates in the forums and meetings held by the protocol associations.”

However, the world-famous automation suppliers, which often promote particular protocols and are a major force in their associations, have a great influence on which protocol is adopted. These major companies are playing an active role in China, and will use their own protocols as the principle choice. For example, PROFIBUS and PROFINET will be the first choice of Siemens; CC-Link will be the first choice of Mitsubishi; Ethernet/IP and ControlNet will be chosen by Rockwell; and EtherCat by Beckhoff.

In contrast, the influence of local Chinese local suppliers on the industrial networking market is relatively weak. The most important reason is that only few of them can offer a complete range of automation solutions or products. Thus these manufacturers have no motivation to develop networking technology, as they seldom sell their products as an entire system, so that industrial networking is usually not necessary.

However, there are still some local Chinese protocols. EPA was a good example of a local industrial networking protocol in process automation; it was developed by Supcon, a Chinese company which provides process solutions. However, its development has been limited, with Supcon accounting for most of the nodes that use EPA in process automation. The problem remains not only for EPA but for all the locally developed protocols, of how they can break through the bottleneck to a wider market. 

Editors Note :

Press Contact: Yvonne Zhang
Press Manager: Yvonne Zhang
IMS Research
Tel: +86 21 62701823
Press contact email: Yvonne.Zhang@imsresearch.com

About IHS Inc. (www.ihs.com)

IHS (NYSE: IHS) is the leading source of information, insight and analytics in critical areas that shape today’s business landscape. Businesses and governments in more than 165 countries around the globe rely on the comprehensive content, expert independent analysis and flexible delivery methods of IHS to make high-impact decisions and develop strategies with speed and confidence. IHS has been in business since 1959 and became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, USA, IHS employs more than 5,600 people in more than 30 countries around the world.

About IMS Research:

IMS Research is the leading independent provider of market research and consultancy to the global electronics industry. The company’s headquarters is in the UK, with offices in the US, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. IMS Research regularly publishes detailed research on industrial automation markets, among many others.

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