Chinese Laboratories Share Views in Survey

For high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ultrahigh-pressure LC (UHPLC), and LC–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) technologies, China has continued to provide solid growth opportunities, as a result of the country’s investments in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as agriculture and food testing. Major instrument manufacturers including Agilent, Shimadzu, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Waters have established a stronghold in the market, and continue to perform well. As the market continues to evolve, Chinese HPLC users are expressing their preferences, gravitating to only a few manufacturers. Some Chinese users maintain a strong allegiance to indigenous HPLC suppliers. However, they also recognize that the quality, reliability, and performance from the international HPLC manufacturers are unrivaled, swaying purchase decisions in favor of global brands.

Top-Down Analytics (TDA) recently surveyed over 200 Chinese HPLC, UHPLC, and LC–MS users who provided opinions about their instrument and consumables suppliers. Approximately 30% of the respondents were from pharmaceutical and biotechnology laboratories. Agriculture, food and beverage, and government laboratories each represented about a fifth of the responses, and LC users from chemical laboratories accounted for about 14% of the survey participants.

When asked to compare domestic or Chinese LC manufacturers with global brands, some respondents were quite candid, indicating that the Chinese brands were improving, but still far from catching up to the quality of the international suppliers. For columns and other consumables, many Chinese laboratories prefer to use local distributors.

The use of UHPLC continues to increase in popularity, keeping pace with North American and European trends. The overall market for HPLC, UHPLC, and LC–MS in China represents a significant share of the overall market, accounting for about 11% of the worldwide analytical instrument industry. In 2017, TDA estimates there were about 7000 combined HPLC and LC–MS installations in China. Growth is expected to remain quite robust for the next few years, as a result of continued expansion of life science research laboratories and applied markets.

Sector distribution of Chinese HPLC and LC–MS survey respondents (n = 223).

Market size and growth estimates were adopted from TDA’s Industry Data, a database of technology market profiles and benchmarks, and the 2018 Instrument Industry Outlook report from independent market research firm Top-Down Analytics (TDA). Survey data was extracted from TDA’s report, “A Liquid Chromatography Survey in China: Chinese Scientists Share Their Preferences.” For more information, contact Glenn Cudiamat, general manager, at (888) 953-5655 or glenn.cudiamat@tdaresearch.com. Glenn is a market research expert who has been covering the analytical instrumentation industry for more than two decades.