According to IMS Research, the world uninterruptible power supply (UPS) market will contract by more than US$400 million in 2009. This downturn will not hit all regions equally hard; the regions with developing UPS markets will fare better.

Although the UPS markets continued to grow strongly in the first three quarters of 2008, fourth quarter revenues were much worse than expected, especially in North America and EMEA. Medium term, EMEA and North America revenues will reach the levels previously forecast for 2010 a year or two later.

"The lack of available credit, collapse of the retail and finance markets, and delays in data center expansion are all hurting the developed markets," explained analyst Donald Henschel. Many developing markets will suffer less because of steady government investment in industry and infrastructure and their more critical need for power quality control. "The credit collapse has not affected some markets, particularly those of Latin America and Africa, as badly; there, intense government involvement in business is common," Henschel added.

"Still, the underlying factors driving UPS sales remain strong worldwide." Longer-term growth forecasts for UPS are positive; current projections show recovery to nearly double-digit annual global growth by 2011. This is due to ever growing demand for Web hosting and services, telecommunications infrastructure, and digitization in general.