Karlsruhe, Germany, April 23rd, 2008: With more than a million nodes already installed, PROFINET is optimally established in the field of industrial automation. The initial count carried out for PROFINET impressively attests to this. Each node represents an automation end device with a PROFINET interface. Devices such as switches, hubs and routers, i.e. structural components of the Ethernet infrastructure, are not counted.

To get an overview of the definite number of PROFINET nodes already on the market, PI (PROFIBUS & PROFINET International) tasked a notary with the job of determining the number of installed PROFINET nodes. The initial count covered the time period from 2002 to 2007 and yielded a very impressive number: By the end of 2007, 1.14 million PROFINET nodes had already been installed in various applications.

Joerg Freitag (PI Deputy Chairman) is setting ambitious goals. "We estimate that 3 million PROFINET nodes will have been installed by the end of 2010. This corresponds to an average annual increase of 37%.” This puts the market forecast for PROFINET above average. A study published by the ARC Advisory Group in January 2008 sees a 27.5% annual increase on the global market for Ethernet-capable devices over the next 5 years. "With PROFIBUS, we have the largest installed base on the fieldbus market," said Freitag. "By integrating today’s fieldbus systems into PROFINET via a proxy, we offer optimal protection of investment for device manufacturers and system operators.”

The PROFIBUS market looks just as good. Last year, PI recorded the highest growth ever of installed nodes. In 2007, the number of PROFIBUS nodes purchased grew to a new all-time high of 4.5 million. This means that 23.3 million PROFIBUS nodes had been installed by the end of 2007.

The number of PROFIBUS PA devices increased by 120,000 to 750,000 in 2007. The total number of PROFIBUS nodes installed in the process industry amounts now to 4 million, which corresponds to an additional 700,000 nodes in 2007.

The number of established PROFIsafe nodes and systems experienced especially vigorous growth. The number of PROFIsafe nodes increased by 180,000 to 410,000 in 2007, and the number of PROFIsafe systems by 15,000 to 41,000.

These figures impressively attest to the fact that PROFIBUS is the global market leader in fieldbus communication. PROFINET has been able to seamlessly tie in to this success.

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