Hannover 2016: PROFI Growth

I’m just back from Hannover Fair, reflecting on the news therefrom.  In passing (literally), it was PresObama_walkbyPresident Obama’s walk-by.  For us automation types though it was the continuing growth of all things PROFI.

The independent auditor’s count of nodes installed during 2015 provides new totals.  While I and my PI colleagues get enamored of the numbers themselves, the news is “great growth for PROFINET, PROFIsafe, and PROFIBUS in process.” With three million PROFINET nodes in 2015, the PROFINET total now stands at 12.8 million.  That continues a string of 30%-growth years.

PROFINET_Nodes_2016

PROFIsafe is the world’s leading functional safety network. (It runs over both PROFINET and PROFIBUS.)  With 1.3 million nodes last year, the total is 5.4 million.

Not surprisingly, the PROFIBUS DP growth rate has been declining over recent years as more users choose PROFINET. Still 2.8 million nodes in 2015 for a total of 53.7 million nodes is pretty good. And, of course, PROFIBUS remains the bestselling serial fieldbus of all time! The counter trend in PROFIBUS is the increasing growth of PROFIBUS in process which now stands at 9.9 million.

IO-Link continues to grow with 3.6 million nodes installed through 2015.

There’s a lot more news from Hannover Fair this year so follow the blog all this week.

–Carl Henning