Source: Workers' Daily  20^th Sep 2025

Recently, the "2025 China Laser Industry Development Report (Detailed Edition)" was released. This report was jointly formulated by the Chinese Optical Society, China Laser Journal and the Wuhan Literature and Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It systematically reviews the development trends of China's laser industry in terms of policies, regions, technologies, products, markets and enterprises.

The report shows that the global laser equipment market's sales revenue reached 21.8 billion US dollars in 2024. Among them, the sales revenue of the Chinese laser equipment market was 89.7 billion yuan (down 1.4% year-on-year), accounting for 56.6% of the global total. In the important sub-market of laser cutting complete sets of equipment, due to the downturn in the real estate sector, the purchase volume of equipment in the construction machinery and steel structure fields decreased by 15% to 20%. The sales revenue of the laser cutting complete sets of equipment market declined for the first time in 2024, reaching 30.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.1%. It is expected to further adjust to 29.6 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year decrease of 2.7%. Despite short-term pressure, laser cutting equipment remains one of the fastest-growing segments in the machine tool field and holds an important share in the global market, reflecting that its long-term industrial value has not changed.

From a competitive perspective, the Chinese laser cutting equipment industry is facing challenges such as product homogenization and intensified competition in the mid-to-low-end market. The majority of enterprises are concentrated in the general-purpose equipment sector, and the convergence of technological routes has led to a continuous increase in market competition pressure. Leading enterprises, leveraging economies of scale, have achieved cost optimization, further squeezing the survival space of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the industry's differentiation trend is evident. The specialized markets exhibit distinct characteristics: although precision laser cutting equipment started later and has a smaller overall scale compared to sheet metal laser cutting equipment, its growth potential is significant; the sheet metal laser cutting equipment market, on the other hand, shows a clear two-pole differentiation trend. In terms of the overall competitive landscape, the combined market share of the top ten enterprises in the laser cutting equipment industry exceeded 50% in 2024, with the concentration of leading players further increasing.

In 2024, China's laser industry demonstrated a trend of "regional linkage and key breakthroughs". Different regions promoted industrial upgrading through differentiated paths: in the South China region, Guangdong issued an industrial cluster action plan to drive the development of laser and additive manufacturing through policies; in the Central China region, Hunan focused on laser additive manufacturing for special equipment, while Hubei listed multi-scale laser manufacturing as a breakthrough direction in digital manufacturing; in the North China region, the Third World Laser Industry Conference held in Jinan became an important platform for international exchanges and cooperation. Meanwhile, some enterprises in this region were also responding to changes in the competitive landscape through technological and capacity layout. Take Bonder Laser as an example. It has continuously invested in core component research and development and capacity building, and established a "dual-engine" system in the north and south. Through the synergy of its bases in Jinan and Shenzhen, it has enhanced its scale and market response capabilities.

The report indicates that China's laser industry has entered a deep adjustment phase in 2024. The contraction of demand in traditional industrial markets has intensified competition within the industry. Although there are signs of recovery in some sectors such as consumer electronics and the pace of enterprises going global has accelerated, it is still difficult to reverse the overall downward trend in the short term. The most direct manifestation is that the number of new laser enterprises in 2024 has decreased by 47.24% compared to the previous year, and the pace of industry reshuffling has significantly accelerated. Looking ahead, Chinese laser enterprises need to break away from low-end competition, extend into high-value-added fields, strengthen core capabilities through technological deepening, and expand market space through global operations in order to achieve sustainable development and drive the industry towards a new growth cycle. (Reporter Xu Xinxing, Correspondent Zhang Ting, Workers' Daily Client)