Industrial Ethernet continues to dominate with 79% of new nodes
18 June 2026 
Industrial Ethernet technologies accounted for 79% of all new industrial networking nodes installed worldwide during 2025, up from 76% in 2024, according to the latest annual survey of the industrial networking market conducted by HMS Networks. At the same time, fieldbus technologies continued their long-term decline, accounting for just 14% of new nodes, down from 17% the previous year.
After a slowdown in 2024, the industrial networking market stabilised in 2025. Component availability has returned to normal levels and inventory cycles in highly automated sectors have largely been worked through. While Europe’s automotive sector continued to face headwinds, broader manufacturing activity recovered modestly, and capital spending on new automation projects resumed in most regions, according to HMS.
The industrial Ethernet market grew by 12% last year, and wireless communications by 8%, while the fieldbus market shrank by 11%.
The latest study confirms HMS’ earlier prediction that the number of new nodes to be installed over the coming five years will grow annually by around 7.7%, on average. Much of that expansion will be driven by the continuing migration of the remaining fieldbus installations to Industrial Ethernet.
Three industrial Ethernet protocols – Profinet, Ethernet/IP and EtherCat – together accounted for 75% of the global industrial Ethernet market last year, with all three increasing their market shares. Profinet rose from 27% in 2024 to 30% in 2025, EtherNet/IP climbed from 23% to 25%, and EtherCat grew from 17% to 20%.
Trailing some way behind were Modbus TCP, which held steady at 5%, CC-Link IE, which remained stable at 3%, and Powerlink which slipped from 3% to 1%. Other Ethernet protocols account for the remaining 2% of the market as consolidation continued around the major networks.
Wireless technologies appear to have stalled, with 7% of new node installations in 2025 – unchanged from 2024. Wireless retains its role as a complement to wired industrial networks, particularly for mobile equipment such as AGVs (automated guided vehicles) and AMRs (autonomous mobile robots), machinery retrofits, and IIoT sensors located in hard-to-reach places.
Although there is still significant interest in 5G, its rate of industrial deployment remains slow. The most commonly cited barrier to its wider use is the complexity of private 5G infrastructures. 5G deployments continue to grow, particularly in Asia, but the technology has yet to deliver the breakthrough in adoption that many in the industry had been expecting.
The shrinking sales of fieldbus systems are confirmed by Profinet & Profinet International’s own figures, which reveal that installations of new Profibus nodes dropped from 1.1 million in 2024 to 1 million in 2025 – a 9% decline. In the fieldbus market, Profibus remains the largest player, but dropped from 5% to 4% of the industrial networking market. Modbus RTU held steady at 3%, reflecting its continued role as a universal low-cost serial protocol, while CC-Link, DeviceNet and CAN/CANopen each remain in the 1–2% range, with modest further declines. Other fieldbus protocols together accounted for 2% of the market, down from 4%.
Breaking down sales by region, Profinet and EtherCat continue to lead the market in Europe, with strong activity around SPE (Single Pair Ethernet) for sensor-level connectivity, and APL (Advanced Physical Layer) for process automation. The decline of Profibus is most evident in Europe, which has the largest installed base and where migration to Profinet is most advanced.
In North America, EtherNet/IP remains the dominant protocol, especially in the automotive sector and discrete manufacturing. Adoption of IO-Link, APL and SPE is gaining momentum, supported by an interest in OT cybersecurity ahead of the regulatory landscape taking shape around the Cyber Resilience Act and IEC 62443.
In Asia, both Profinet and EtherCat are continuing to expand in the Chinese market. CC-Link IE, the first industrial protocol with TSN mechanism, maintains a strong foothold in the region.
HMS Networks’ analysis is based on a combination of market insights, internal data, and input from key stakeholders in the industrial automation industry. Its study focuses on newly installed nodes in factory automation applications worldwide, with each node being a device or machine connected to an industrial control network. This is the twelfth year that HMS has published its annual analysis. Industrial Ethernet accounted for just 34% of new nodes when HMS started to publish its figures in 2015.
“Twelve years of data tell a remarkably consistent story,” says Magnus Jansson, HMS Networks’ director of product marketing. “The migration from fieldbus to Industrial Ethernet is now in its later stages, but the more interesting question is what happens next. When nearly everything is Ethernet, the conversation shifts from ‘which protocol?’ to ‘what is running on top of it?’, functional safety, cybersecurity, TSN, OPC UA, SPE and IT/OT convergence. That is where the complexity, and the differentiation, will increasingly sit.
“The 2026 numbers also reinforce something we have been seeing in our industry survey: cybersecurity is now cited by nearly half of respondents as a top integration challenge, and 93% expect OT cybersecurity to change substantially over the next five years,” he adds “The protocols matter, but the layers above them increasingly define how factories actually operate.”
As well as its annual market shares analysis, HMS Networks also publishes a State of Industrial Networking study – an extended companion report that examines the broader forces shaping industrial communications.
