Asia remains the strongest market for industrial robots and China rose by 21% and reached about 783,000 units in 2019, according to World Robotics 2020 Industrial Robots report by International Federation of Robotics (IFR).
Sales of new robots remain on a high level with 373,000 units shipped globally in 2019. This is 12% less compared to 2018, but still, the 3rd highest sales volume ever recorded.
Japan ranks second with about 355,000 units, up 12%. India has a new record of about 26,300 units, an increase of 15%. Within five years, India has doubled the number of industrial robots operating in the country´s factories.
The share of newly installed robots in Asia was about two-thirds of global supply. Sales of almost 140,500 new robots in China is below the record years of 2018 and 2017 but still more than double the numbers sold five years ago (2014: 57,000 units).
IFR report also shows that the installations of top Asian markets slowed down – in China (down 9%) and Japan (down 10%).
In China, the broad majority of 71% of new robots was shipped in from foreign suppliers. Chinese manufacturers still mainly cater to the domestic market, where they gain increasing market shares.
Foreign suppliers deliver some 29% of their units to the automotive industry, while it is only around 12% for Chinese suppliers. Therefore, foreign suppliers are more affected by the decline of business in the Chinese automotive industry than domestic suppliers.
Top 15 Largest Markets by Total Installation of Industrial Robots in 2019
- China: 140.5k
- Japan: 49.9k
- The United States: 33.3k
- South Korea: 27.9k
- Germany: 20.5k
- Italy: 11.1k
- France: 6.7k
- Taiwan: 6.4k
- Mexico: 4.6k
- India: 4.3k
- Spain: 3.8k
- Canada: 3.6k
- Thailand: 2.9k
- Poland: 2.6k
- Czech: 2.6k
CIW Subscribers (annual billing) can download the presentation here.