At the end of the first quarter of 2009, the North American machine vision market experienced its largest year-on-year quarter decline ever - approximately 41%, according to Nello Zuech, Yardley, PA consultant in machine vision. The economy and associated decline in capital spending throughout all manufacturing industries account for the decline, especially the decline in semiconductor equipment spending still the largest consumer of machine vision. North American machine vision market revenues declined 26% between the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009.

The North American machine vision industry revenues from worldwide sales of North American companies declined somewhat more year-over-year - 43%, while quarter-over-quarter decline was about the same - 26% as that of the market decline. Clearly this reflects a slump in capital spending throughout the industrial world.