Use of industrial robots increasing rapidly in China
July 10, 2018 Category China News Round-up, Weekly
China purchased 141,000 industrial robots in 2017, up 58.1% year-on-year, but foreign brands accounted for nearly three quarters of that, showing that the gap is still widening between Chinese robot makers and their foreign peers. The China International Robot Industry Summit, held in Shanghai on July 3, said sales of industrial robots hit records in 2017. Among industrial robots, 37,825 were domestically manufactured, up 29.8% year-on-year.
“As robotics is expanding into nearly every industry, Chinese robot makers should realize the gap between them and foreign brands, take advantage of China’s robotics development boom and learn from foreign experience to help China grow from the world’s largest robot market into a robot manufacturing power,” said Qu Daokui, President of China Robot Industry Alliance and CEO of Shenyang-based Siasun Robot and Automation Co. According to Qu, foreign robot makers sold 103,191 robots to China in 2017, up 71.9% from a year earlier. Although Chinese domestic suppliers have expanded their market share to 32.7% in 2016, the trend was reversed in 2017, as their share shrank to 26.8%. In his report on the Global Market of Industrial Robots, Junji Tsuda, President of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), noted that about 387,000 industrial robots were installed in 2017 worldwide, up 31% year-on-year, creating USD50 billion in revenue, with China as one of the key drivers behind the strong growth. China has become the world’s largest industrial robot market since 2013, and currently its domestic suppliers are moving up the supplier chain by offering more high-end products in recent years.
In 2017, a majority of 64.7% of the robots sold in China were articulated robots, with their sales surging 66.6% year-on-year. Meanwhile, 42.1% of the robots sold by domestic suppliers were articulated robots, with sales rising 35.5% from 2016. Experts said there is still great potential for China’s robot market. Robot density, or the number of robots per 10,000 persons used in the manufacturing industry, reached 101 last year in China, and it is going to reach 150 by 2020,” according to Zhu Sendi, Member of the National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee and Secretary General of the Strategic Emerging Industries Expert Advisory Committee, the China Daily reports.
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