The introduction of industrial robots has improved production efficiency and cost savings by leaps and bounds. Taking new energy vehicles as an example, due to bypassing technical obstacles such as traditional fuel vehicle engines and gearboxes, industrial robots in the production of new energy vehicles can maximize their advantages as an alternative technology, and a number of "unmanned factories" have emerged, and a car can be offline in tens of seconds.
The era has once again come to the threshold of a new round of productivity revolution.
As a manufacturing country, China's demand for industrial robots is very strong. Since 2013, China's industrial robot market sales have ranked first in the world for 11 consecutive years, and currently account for more than half of global sales. From basic research to industrialization, the scale of China's industrial robot industry is growing, and the localization pattern has stood at the inflection point of quantitative change to qualitative change. According to the latest statistics from the High-tech Industry Research Institute (GGII), the market share of domestic industrial robots in 2023 reached 52.45%, which for the first time achieved a counterweight to foreign brands in terms of sales volume.
As a carrier of emerging technologies and an important equipment for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the application of industrial robots has brought about new changes in productivity and production relations. So, what are the driving factors for the rapid development of the domestic industrial robot market? What is the future of robotics? Developing domestic industrial robots, how to break through? Standing on the track of new quality productivity, it is necessary to examine the opportunities and challenges brought by industrial robots.
It has been the world's largest market for 11 consecutive years
In people's common impression, industrial robots are tireless workers on the production line, mechanically repeating the prescribed actions. In fact, with the integration of artificial intelligence, machine vision, cloud computing, motion control and other technologies with robotics, industrial robots now have more perfect environmental perception ability, as well as logical reasoning, judgment and decision-making ability, becoming a highly intelligent and precision product.
Today, when the demographic dividend is fading and labor costs are rising, industrial robots, with the advantages of high accuracy, high stability and low cost, have decided to become a "good match" to replace all kinds of heavy, boring or harmful manual labor in the manufacturing industry. Whether it is automobile, mechanical processing, electrical and electronic, food, logistics and other industries, or welding, handling, processing, assembly and other industrial production links, you can see the figure of robots. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the global industrial robot market will reach $19.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 11% year-on-year.
China's huge manufacturing volume has given birth to the world's largest industrial robot consumer market. In 2013, China surpassed Japan for the first time to become the world's largest industrial robot market, with sales of 36,600 units that year, accounting for 20.52% of the world's total. So far, this pattern has lasted for 11 years.
According to the World Industrial Robots Report released by IFR, 553,000 industrial robots were installed in factories worldwide in 2022 (Figure 1), of which 290,000 were installed in China. Japan, in second place, has only 50,000 installations.
The introduction of industrial robots has improved production efficiency and cost savings by leaps and bounds. Taking new energy vehicles as an example, due to bypassing technical obstacles such as traditional fuel vehicle engines and gearboxes, industrial robots in the production of new energy vehicles can maximize their advantages as an alternative technology, and a number of "unmanned factories" have emerged, and a car can be offline in tens of seconds.
Xu Ruqiang (a pseudonym), an executive of a listed industrial robot company, told the Securities Times reporter: "The rapid growth of demand mainly depends on two factors, one is that with the aging of the population and the rise of labor costs, some traditional industries such as food, beverage, chemical industry, etc., in the production line automation, packaging, palletizing and other aspects of the use of industrial robots to improve production efficiency; Second, some emerging industries such as new energy, biomedicine, aerospace, smart agriculture and other fields, the demand for high-precision, high-stability industrial robots will increase."
Dr. CAI Zhenkun of the School of Economics of Shandong University believes that the large-scale application of industrial robots is the answer of The Times, but it also needs to be guided. He said: "Many companies that introduce industrial robots, in order to pursue short-term gains, choose to convert cost advantages into price advantages." However, the introduction of industrial robots in production is not equal to improving the technical level of enterprises. Only by investing in research and development and independent innovation can enterprises turn the cost advantage brought by automated production into a technological advantage, so as to gain core competitiveness in the new round of industrial change."
The annual output exceeded 400,000 units
Before 2016, China's industrial robot local enterprises research and development ability is weak, technical strength and overseas leading there is a big gap, in order to cultivate the market, the overall policy orientation is to market for technology, encourage the introduction of overseas robot enterprises investment, while promoting the technological progress of local enterprises. The four major international robot manufacturers have built production bases in China.
With the support of favorable policies and market demand, China's industrial robot industry continues to develop and grow. According to the statistics Bureau, between 2015 and 2022, the annual output of industrial robots in China increased from 33,000 units to 443,000 units, an increase of more than 12 times in eight years. According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of industrial robots in China reached 120,000 units in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 4.9% year-on-year (Figure 2).
The density of industrial robots is a key indicator to measure the degree of automation in manufacturing. IFR data show that in 2022, China's robot density reached 392 units per 10,000 workers, nearly 2.6 times the global average, and the ranking jumped to fifth place in the world, after South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan. The "14th Five-Year Plan" robot industry plan proposes that by 2025, the density of robots in China's manufacturing industry will double compared with 2020, which means that it will reach about 500 units/million people, and there is still a large room for growth in the future.
CAI Zhenkun believes: "The rise of domestic industrial robots is caused by many factors. The first is policy support. China's "Made in China 2025" released in 2015 elevates the development of AI-related technologies to a national strategic level; Secondly, the objective situation is caused by aging and the continuous increase of minimum wage, which leads to the continuous increase of labor costs, and enterprises have the internal motivation of machine replacement. Relevant industries have developed to a certain extent and technology has accumulated to a certain level, creating conditions for the rise of the industrial robot industry."
Siasun robot automotive industry senior director Cheng Hufeng also said: "First, industrial upgrading, China proposed intelligent manufacturing 2025 has been nearly ten years, the industry from the discrete development, personalized development of the general situation, gradually standardized, information, intelligent, there are many excellent enterprises have made achievements; Second, the demographic dividend is declining, many factories can not find suitable technical workers, even if found, salary requirements are increasing year by year; Third, after the epidemic, many industries have been reshuffled, and the survival ability of enterprises that complete the transformation of intelligent manufacturing in advance will be stronger, there is no need to recruit so many workers, and the productivity elasticity and quality stability have been greatly improved; Fourth, the cost of the robot itself is falling, the investment payback period of enterprises using robots will be shorter, and enterprises are more willing to choose industrial robots in business decisions. The changes in these dimensions and the combined blessings have promoted the increase in the use of robots in China."
