The global robot industry, a beacon of technological integration and innovation, has long been a focal point for governments and researchers worldwide. Its applications have proliferated across daily life and industrial sectors, acting as a significant catalyst for progress. Notably, since 2009, robotics has defied global economic headwinds to maintain rapid growth. China cemented its position as the world’s largest robot market in 2013, a title it has held for six consecutive years, also boasting the highest growth rate for the preceding five years.
However, 2018 marked a potential inflection point. The industry’s trajectory shifted from high-speed expansion to low-speed, near-zero growth, even dipping into negative territory globally. The China robot market similarly experienced a downturn. This sudden shift prompted a critical question: Is this the onset of a robotic winter, or merely an “late spring cold snap” heralding a new era of opportunity? At the 2019 World Robot Conference, Qu Daokui, founder and president of Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd., offered a deep analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing the China robot industry and its global counterpart.
For years, robotics in China has been a major investment hotspot. Fueled by advancements in artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet, this sector gained tremendous momentum. Yet, just as it seemed poised to usher in a new epoch, the global and China robot markets hit a sudden拐点—slowing to a crawl or even reversing course. This raises fundamental questions about the industry’s immediate future and the broader landscape of opportunities and challenges it must navigate.
1. Analysis of the China Robot Industry
From 2013 to 2017, the China robot market consistently held two global distinctions: the largest market share and the fastest growth rate. The拐点 arrived in 2018. The market first contracted by 3.75%. A closer look at market composition reveals a nuanced story. The market is shared between foreign brands and domestic China robot products. Despite the overall 3.7% decline, domestic manufacturers delivered a strong performance, with the market share for local products growing by 16%, while foreign brands saw an approximately 11% decrease. Another key shift is in the domestic market share: after rising consistently from 2013 to 2016, it dropped in 2017. In 2018, even as the total market shrank, the share of China robot brands rebounded to about one-third (33%).
Within the overall China robot market, articulated robots hold the largest share at nearly 60%, followed by SCARA robots, and then logistics robots. In the segment comprised solely of domestic China robot products, articulated robots also lead at 43%—aligning with the international trend—followed by Cartesian robots, then SCARA robots. All these types, whether articulated, Cartesian, or SCARA, are experiencing rapid growth, a positive development. From a structural perspective, domestic China robot companies hold certain advantages in Cartesian and delta robots. However, in the higher-end articulated and SCARA robot categories, they still face disadvantages and gaps compared to foreign brands.
Analyzed by application sector, the electrical and electronic equipment industry accounts for the largest share at about one-third, followed by general machinery manufacturing and metal processing. In welding and assembly applications, foreign robot companies currently dominate, but the competitiveness of China robot products is gradually improving. Globally, including in China, the automotive industry once represented around 45% of the robot market but began a significant decline in 2018. This traditional stronghold for robotics is actually receding. The substantial drop in the 2018 global and China robot markets is closely tied to the automotive sector’s downturn. From an application perspective, the automotive industry remains a clear weak spot for domestic China robot enterprises. Two primary reasons exist: first, robots in automotive applications demand extremely high quality and reliability. While domestic China robot technology has improved markedly in recent years, a gap persists compared to international leaders. Second, the automotive sector has long been dominated by foreign companies with deep industry experience, accumulation, and brand recognition. The China robot industry, by comparison, is only about a decade old, resulting in a significant brand perception gap.
2. Challenges Confronting the Robot Industry
What caused the 2018 downturn? The primary drivers for the sharp slowdown in the China robot market were stagnation in the automotive sector and sluggish growth in the 3C (computer, communication, consumer electronics) industry. While previous years saw growth rates exceeding 50%, 2018 approached negative growth. Globally, growth limped along at about 1%, heavily influenced by the slowdown in the world’s largest market: China.
Industrial robots, after years of explosive growth, encountered a major拐点. Simultaneously, robotics is expanding from industrial uses into service, collaborative, and special-purpose domains. How did these新兴机器人 fare in 2018?
- Collaborative Robots: Rethink Robotics, a pioneer in collaborative robots, closed its doors in 2018 after a period of prominence. This was a significant shock for a segment viewed as a major pillar for future robot development. Blue Workforce, another representative company focusing on robots with vision and force sensing, also ceased operations in 2018.
- Service Robots: Touted as the future in consumer and healthcare fields, service robots have struggled to achieve commercial success, often described as “acclaimed but not best-selling” with a lack of solid market data. A prominent example is Shanghai Tangbao Robot Co., Ltd., a leading early manufacturer in China’s service robot space and the first to obtain “China Robot Certification” (certificate number “001”). This reputable company also went bankrupt in 2018, indicative of the turmoil and change in the service机器人 sector.
Whether in industrial robotics or the emerging generation of collaborative, special-purpose, and service robots, significant problems emerged. 2018 witnessed company failures, broken financial agreements, and a landscape where the feast for新兴机器人 turned into a scene of widespread challenges.
The reasons for weak industrial robot growth are multifaceted:
- Traditional stronghold markets are shrinking.
- New mass markets have not yet materialized.
- Critically, low profit margins cannot sustain the high investment required for R&D and innovation. Robotics is a “three-high” industry: high density of talent, technology, and capital. However, the value-added for China robot products has been decreasing, becoming mismatched with their high-tech nature, undermining sustained investment.
- A harsh industrial environment is straining system integrators. China hosts thousands of integration companies, but difficult payment terms and settlement cycles create cash flow crises, preventing their healthy growth.
These severe challenges contributed to the拐点 for industrial robots in China.
Service robots face a bursting bubble, with many promising ventures failing. The problem of market validation remains unresolved, and the sector is entering a major consolidation phase. Special-purpose robots urgently need to transition from prototypes to viable products and markets, requiring a true metamorphosis. Collaborative robots, perhaps the best-performing新兴领域, have begun gradual market penetration and gained industry recognition. However, significant hurdles remain before they can form a large-scale industry.
With traditional industrial robot growth constrained and新兴机器人 companies struggling, the central question remains: Is this the robot industry’s winter, or a transitional phase—a “late spring cold snap”—preceding a new spring of opportunity?
3. Opportunities and Hope for the Robot Market
Technological breakthroughs and convergence present major opportunities. Modern robots are no longer mere mechatronic devices but high-tech products integrating AI, information electronics, big data networks, and感知 systems. This fusion grants robots a crucial characteristic:成长性. This成长性 not only transforms traditional industrial robotics but also enables expansion into new fields—from manufacturing to healthcare, defense, services, and消费—representing the true future potential for China robot development and beyond.
The global advance into the Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing era provides a massive market foundation. Shifts from labor shortages and rising costs to global overcapacity, personalized demand, and rapid product iteration are rendering old, rigid, mass-production models obsolete. The new smart manufacturing paradigm requires a transformation of production factors. While the first three industrial revolutions emphasized efficiency, quality, and cost, the fourth emphasizes flexibility, intelligence, and resource optimization. This shift in demand changes the required production factors from human labor and machinery to robots.
Smart manufacturing and digital factories require interconnectivity and data flow between all physical assets. While data moves freely, human workers, as direct production factors, cannot be seamlessly connected to this digital flow. Thus, the new制造模式 has a crowding-out effect on human labor and a binding effect on robotics, creating significant market opportunities for China robot adoption and innovation.
Changes in production factors also drive functional improvements in robots, making them applicable in enterprises where they were previously unsuitable. A key enabler is the rapid decline in robot costs, allowing wider adoption. The primary competition for robots is now human labor. The sharp reduction in available workforce and the rapid increase in labor costs are accelerating robot deployment. Therefore, the evolution of production factors is a major发展机遇 for the China robot industry.
Historical data reveals a compelling trajectory: In the over four decades before 2009, the global installed base of robots reached about one million units. From 2010 to 2015, an additional million were added. From 2016 to 2018, another million were installed. This “triple jump” indicates robots have entered a rapid, “step-change” development phase, moving beyond linear growth. The true explosion of the robot market is imminent. Even with near-zero growth in 2018, the industry achieved in six years what previously took forty.
Another powerful indicator is robot density. Over the past forty years, the global robot density reached only 0.85%. Projections suggest this could surpass 30% within the next five to ten years, signaling the true arrival of the robotics market era.
China is entering an “Intelligence Plus” era, and robots serve as the quintessential platform for “Intelligence Plus,” supporting advancements in manufacturing, defense,消费, healthcare, education,交通, and smart cities. Robots are not mere substitutes but agents of颠覆 and transformation, positioning them for accelerated growth.
- Technology is in a Period of Great Transformation: This upheaval offers major opportunities through technological breakthroughs, rapid product iteration, and cross-border融合, evolving robots from “machines” toward true “human-like” machines.
- The Market is in a Period of Great Transition: The shift from traditional to emerging markets provides enormous potential and support for the future of the China robot industry.
- China’s Robot Industry is in a Period of Adjustment and Upgrade: The focus is shifting from quantity of enterprises to quality of development, moving from low-end positioning toward high-end innovation.
- China Robot Enterprises are in a Period of Shake-up and Regeneration: The phase of explosive, undisciplined growth with tens of thousands of companies is giving way to a more rational stage. Defining core advantages, accurate positioning, and sustainable development models are keys to the future hope for China robot enterprises and the industry at large.
The conclusion is that机遇与挑战并存. Change and颠覆 have become the常态. The perception that fast growth means spring and a slowdown means winter is obsolete. Future development will be wave-like. Victory will belong to those who master变革, whether in technology or business models. Crucially, as part of the robot industry, we must create the future. It cannot be achieved by merely “holding on,” nor through imitation and following. The future trend lies in共享,共融,共赢, and collaborative development.
The firm belief is that the current phase is merely a minor拐点 in the industry’s journey. The genuine spring for the robot industry, including the dynamic China robot sector, is on the horizon.