With a 2013 jump in sales in excess of 20% over the year before, IDS Imaging Development Systems GmbH, headquartered in Obersulm, Germany, far exceeded the 5% growth predicted by the market analysts for the industrial machine vision sector. For the current year, IDS expects renewed growth of at least 12%. The above-average growth rate is in part due to an increase in international business. The company's export ratio rose to 40% in 2013 (up from 32% the previous year). In the Asian market, sales to China more than doubled.

In the US and European markets markets, IDS is striving to further intensify customer support, and plans to make further investments in expansion of its sales structure. On top of this, IDS is driving growth by launching new products, such as the Ensenso N20, a stereo 3D camera with GigE interface. And, by continually expanding its portfolio of USB 3.0 cameras, IDS strives to meet the increasing demands of the machine vision market.

Jürgen Hartmann, Founder and Managing Director of IDS, explained the company's plans for the year ahead as follows: "In 2014, along with developing new camera families, we're investing in the expansion of our headquarters to ensure that we're ideally equipped to meet our growth targets. This will go hand-in-hand with the hiring of additional qualified employees."