Sales inside the machine vision industry grew 16 percent in North America in the second quarter of 2011 compared with the same quarter a year earlier, according to the Automated Imaging Association (AIA).

The trade organization recorded robust sales across almost all major machine vision supplier markets, including cameras, lighting, optics, software, application-specific machine vision systems and smart cameras. A new report from the group also found that the industry expects sales to stay at current levels or to increase in the next six months. Overall, only 9 percent of reporting companies expected sales to decrease.

“It is encouraging that, for the sixth quarter in a row, the machine vision market in North America has recorded solid year-over-year growth,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of the AIA. Paul Kellett, AIA’s director of market analysis, added that the double-digit growth of the market in the second quarter this year was particularly impressive given that the industry’s recovery was already in full swing during the comparable period last year.

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