Region #instruments base
North America * 16 42%
Europe © 14 37%
Asia/Pacific © 6 16%
Africa 2 5%
Total 38 100%
* U.S.A. and Canada
® includes Russia
* includes Australia, New Zealand, Japan , Korea and China
Table 5. Installed Instrument Base By Geographic Region
It is important to distinguish between the demand for
instruments based on the adoption rate for the technology, the
actual production capacity and the actual booked sales of OTS
instruments. Production capacity in this context is taken to be
the sum total of all sensors that could be produced by OTS and
proprietary instrument manufacturers given their current levels
of staffing, capital infrastructure investment and related
resources. The total existing production capacity is difficult to
determine. Manufacturers are understandably reluctant to
discuss details of their in-house capacity, while proprietary
system owners are not willing to reveal their internal growth
strategies. In addition, the potential for new entrants on the
instrument side of the business can not be discounted since the
majority of the engineering challenges and technical issues
related to airborne laser altimetry have already been reduced to
practice. The decision to enter the instrument side of the
industry is essentially a business decision, not a technical
challenge. The emergence of another instrument supplier
would obviously increase the production capacity of OTS
systems. The impact of the OTS manufacturers approach to the
market also needs to be considered in estimating the production
capacity as their strategy will play an important role in
determining increases in the installed instrument base. Given
the limited competition that currently exists on the OTS
instrument side of the industry, it may not be in the
manufacturers’ best interest to ramp-up production to meet
immediate demand, but rather to delay orders and deliveries to
increase their backlog. There is limited financial risk for the
manufacturers in such an approach since currently there are few
alternatives for companies wanting to obtain laser altimetry
capabilities but not in a position to fund a proprietary
development program. Secondary evidence of this strategy can
be seen in the fact that the overall sales effort of the OTS
manufacturers across the entire industry is probably less than 15
full-time staff. Such a limited effort compared to the potential
economic value of the instrument market probably acts to
distort the sales of OTS instruments relative to demand.
However, from extended delivery times for OTS instruments,
order backlogs and anecdotal evidence, it can be estimated that
the current production capacity of the industry is nearly
saturated and it will be extremely challenging for the
manufacturers to deliver 20 instruments to field in 2000,
although actual demand may exceed this level.
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Vol. 32, Part 3W14, La Jolla, CA, 9-11 Nov. 1999
3.2. Projected Growth 2000 - 2005
While it is difficult to analyze all the variables that will
determine the increase in the installed instrument base over the
next five years, it is instructive to project forward based on the
average percentage growth in the instrument base from 1998-
2000. The average annual increase in the instrument base from
1998-2000, including 10 firm deliveries by June 2000, was
~25%. If only the two year period 1999-2000 is considered, the
average increase is ~35%. Table 6 presents a forward
projection for the installed instrument base based on these
growth rates.
Vaid 25% * 35%"
Year Total Year Total
1998 9 29 9 29
1999 18 38 18 38
y 20200. 0. 8 a: S.
2001 15 73 20 78
2002 18 91 27 105
2003 23 114 37 142
2004 29 143 50 192
2005 36 179 67 259
* 3 year average, 1998-2000
^ 2 year average, 1999-2000
Table 6. Projected Installed Instrument Base
A recent strategic market report on the world market for remote
sensing data (World Remote Sensing Data and GIS Software
Markets, Frost and Sullivan, Consulting Report, 1999)
indicates a 9.1% compound annual growth rate through 2005
for aerial imaging and data collection. The survey and mapping
industry is itself experiencing significant growth due to the
impact of GPS technology and the growth in GIS markets, both
of which are billion dollar segments of the global economy. It
can be assumed that a minimum annual growth of 10% in the
installed base of laser altimetry instruments will be required just
to address the growth in the downstream segments of the value
chain. However, it is also reasonable to assume that the growth
in the installed instrument base will eventually plateau as the
adoption of the technology reaches saturation. To account for
this, it is important to establish a limit on the projected increase.
For the purposes of this paper, a comparison to the installed
base of aerial cameras is used to constrain the growth curves.
3.3. Comparison to Installed Base of Aerial Cameras
While the adoption rate for airborne laser altimetry can be
estimated based on the recent growth and breakdown of
installed instruments, projections for the future growth of the
installed base are more subjective and open to interpretation. In
estimating the installed instrument base that may eventually be
justified by demand for laser altimetry sensors, it is useful to
make a comparison to a comparable base of instruments. The
aerial camera market is an established sector of the remote
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