BSRIA Worldwide Market Intelligence has recently published 16 structured cabling reports on the global structured cabling markets for 2020. The new reports shed light on USA, Brazil, Mexico, China, HK & Macao, Japan, India, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia and South Africa cabling markets, for both local area networks (LAN) and data centre (DC) applications.
A further 17 countries have been updated at top-line level to reflect the impact of the pandemic, including a forecast until 2025. This second group includes: Colombia, South Korea, Switzerland, Spain, Norway, Finland, Denmark, South East Asia - Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines -, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Poland, Chile and Peru.
The global structured cabling market decreased significantly in 2020. Although most markets were affected by the crisis, a considerable number suffered double-digit losses, others were less affected sliding below average, whilst a handful even managed to grow slightly despite the pandemic.
Markets in developing economies were hit harder by the crisis, which affected both their economies and cabling markets. This was the case for Latin American countries, India, and South Africa, among others.
North America also performed worse than average. In Europe and Asia-Pacific there was a mixed outcome (with countries contracting at high double-digit figures and a few others flat or expanding slightly). The Middle East was not immune to the crisis, although the region performed above average.
The impact of the pandemic in 2020 varied depending on several factors, including: government management of the pandemic; level of restrictions and length of lockdowns; share of the industrial and service sectors; share of the informal economy; and the ability of the population to carry out remote working. As these percentage changes are measured in US dollars, currency depreciation in emerging economies also played a major role in market contraction.
For the next two years (2021/22) BSRIA anticipates healthy growth rates, although the market will not have fully recovered its 2019 levels before 2023.