Industrial robot market contracts
August 28, 2019 Category Macro-economy, Weekly
China’s industrial robot market suffered negative growth for the first time by 3.75% in 2018, according to data released at the World Robot Conference 2019 held in Beijing last week. Despite the downturn, experts noted that traditional robots, such as transfer robots and assembly robots, will be upgraded to be applied in more areas of advanced manufacturing, life services, medical treatment and health. The main reasons for the decline are the depression in the automobile industry and 3C industry (Computer, Communication and Computer Electronic), said Qu Daokui, CEO of Siasun, during his keynote speech on August 21. “Because of the tremendous changes in the Chinese market, the global robot market kept a growth rate of around 1% last year, nearly zero,” Qu said.
Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, echoed Qu’s view and pointed out that the growth of industrial robot output has slowed down since the latter half of 2018. “There are various reasons. For example, the international trade environment has deteriorated, the pressure of global economic downturn increased and the automobile and electronics industries suffered slumps,” said Xin. However, China’s domestic robotic products performed well in 2018, with a 16% increase amid the overall decline, according to Qu. In contrast, sales of foreign brands decreased by 10.9%.
“China is the largest robot market with growth in the world. But if you look at the robot numbers employed in factories, the penetration of robots is still relatively low compared with South Korea, Japan and Germany. I think it’s because China began automation relatively late due to the competitive labor cost,” Adam J. Sobieski, General Manager of Danish company Universal Robots, told the Global Times. He noted that due to young Chinese people being less willing to work in factories, there are a lot of opportunities to increase the penetration of automation in Chinese factories. The high turnover rate of Chinese labor, rising labor costs and the aging problem in China create opportunities for the robot industry, the Global Times reports. But robots in China will not be able to survive in the near future if they don’t combine their mechanical qualities with the technologies of artificial intelligence (AI), electronic information, big data networks and sensory systems, experts said.
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