According to the analysts, the SWIR market had been witnessing significant growth in the past years owing to the high adoption of SWIR technology in both industrial and non-industrial verticals for various applications including security, surveillance, monitoring, and inspection. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a decline in the growth rate of the SWIR market. One of the key factors being the decline in demand for SWIR cameras for various applications including industrial process monitoring, industrial furnace monitoring, solar cell inspecting, inspection sorting, and driver vision-enhancing applications. The pandemic restricted the adoption of SWIR cameras owing to severe disruptions caused by it to businesses and the global economy. The pandemic has resulted in production curtailment leading to a serious decline in business inputs.

Uncooled SWIR technology leads the way

The SWIR market is expected to be led by the uncooled segment during the forecast period. The dominant position of this segment can be attributed to the high demand for uncooled SWIR cameras from the non-industrial vertical, especially from the military and defence sector owing to their low cost compared with cooled SWIR cameras. Cooled SWIR cameras have detectors that are usually more sensitive than uncooled SWIR cameras, while the cost of uncooled cameras is generally lower than that of cooled cameras.

Non industrial vertical driven by military sector

The SWIR market is expected to be led by the non-industrial vertical during the forecast period. The SWIR market for this vertical is being driven by the high adoption of SWIR cameras in the military & defence sector, especially for vision enhancement applications. The demand for SWIR technology-based products for the scientific research sector is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. The high demand from North America, especially for area scan SWIR cameras is boosting the demand for SWIR technology-based products for the scientific research vertical.

North America takes the larger share

North America held the largest share of the SWIR market in 2021. One of the major reasons for the leading position of North America is the presence of several prominent military & defence, scientific research, and medical players in North America that are generating demand for SWIR cameras. Moreover, several companies offering SWIR cameras are present in this region, which further adds to the growth of the SWIR market in North America. Teledyne FLIR, Collins Aerospace, Princeton Instruments, IR Cameras, Photon etc. are just a few of the SWIR camera providers based in North America.

The report profiles key players in the SWIR market and analyses their market shares. Players profiled in this report in addition to those already mentioned above include Xenics, New Imaging Technologies and Allied Vision Technologies, Raptor Photonics, Lynred, Opgal Optronic, Himamatsu Photonics, Intevac, Inview Technology, Sierra-Olympic Technologies, Fluxdata, Episensors, Princeton Infrared Technologies, Leonardo DRS, Infratec, Tonbo Imaging, Cox, C-Thermal, Dali Technology, Axis Communications and HGH Infrared Systems.