According to its own figures, the industry generated an overall increase in turnover of twenty percent compared to the previous year. In the first quarter, the industry recorded a significant increase in turnover due to the catch-up effect, while the following quarters showed stable turnover at a high level.

The industry is once again eager to invest. While investments declined in 2020, AMA members invested 12% more last year and are planning to increase investments by a further 14% in the current year. This shows that the sensor and measurement technology sector is in an optimistic mood.

Until now, the industry's export quotas have grown continuously, but this changed last year. The export ratio fell by eleven percent, but with an overall export ratio of 50 percent, sensor and measurement technology is in line with the industry average.

Number of employees increases, short-time working decreases significantly

Short-time work among AMA member companies fell from around 50 percent in the same quarter of the previous year to seven percent in Q4 2021. While the industry hired three percent new employees last year, it plans to hire a further five percent more this year.

The AMA Association asked its members about the proportion of turnover that companies invest in research and development. The large companies invested twelve percent and the small and medium-sized companies ten percent. Overall, the industry invested around eleven percent of turnover in research and development. This is a comparably high level of innovation intensity to that achieved by the electronics industry. According to the latest study by the ZEW (Leibniz Center for European Economic Research), this is the highest in Germany.

"While 2020 was a challenging year for our members due to the pandemic, they were able to catch up significantly last year and take advantage of catch-up effects, ", says Thomas Simmons, Managing Director of the AMA Association for Sensors and Measurement. "Sales are stabilizing at a high level, the industry is investing in research and development and hiring new employees. This illustrates the optimistic mood of optimism in our industry for the current financial year."