Preface
On November 19, 2024, the Robot Branch of the China Machinery Industry Federation released the statistics of China's industrial robot market in 2023 at the China Robot Industry Development Conference. Data show that China's industrial robot market sales have ranked first in the world for 11 consecutive years, and the proportion of sales in the global market has exceeded 50% for three consecutive years, which is the main driving force for the development of the global robot industry. The development of robots is getting faster and faster because of the improvement of the level of science and technology, which has led to the rapid development of the processing industry, and the precision of the Zero Backlash Gearhead for robots is getting higher and higher, so that all industries now choose to use robots to reduce the probability of errors in work.
Sales in the Chinese market declined, while sales of domestic brands continued to grow
In 2023, the sales volume of China's industrial robot market will be 282,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 4.9%. Among them, the sales of self-owned brand industrial robots were 137,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 21.6%, higher than the overall growth rate. The sales volume of self-owned brand industrial robots accounted for 48.4% of the total sales volume of China's industrial robot market, an increase of 10.6 percentage points compared with 2022, accounting for a record high.
Multi-joint robots and coordinate robots lead the growth
From the perspective of mechanical structure, the sales volume of multi-joint robots in the Chinese market in 2023 will still rank first among all models, with annual sales of 201,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 0.9%, accounting for 71.1% of all models, an increase of 4.1 percentage points compared with 2022, of which 87,000 units of self-owned brand multi-joint robots will be sold, a year-on-year increase of 35.6%, and the market share will exceed 40%. SCARA robots sold 57,000 units for the whole year, a year-on-year decrease of 22.5%; Among them, the sales of self-owned brand SCARA robots were 30,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 3.3%. The sales of coordinate robots were 15,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%, of which 12,000 units were sold by independent brands, a year-on-year increase of 18%. Sales of logistics robots and parallel robots for factories decreased year-on-year.
The growth of robot sales is concentrated in the areas of handling and loading and unloading, and clean rooms
Handling and loading and unloading, as the primary application areas, will sell 162,000 units in 2023, achieving stable growth with a growth rate of 4.9%, accounting for 57.4% of the total sales, an increase of 5.4 percentage points from 2022, of which the sales volume of independent brands will increase by 22.1% and the market share will be 59.5%. sales of welding and brazing robots were 51,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 0.2%; Among them, the sales volume of independent brands increased by 11.6%, and the market share was 29.4%. Sales in the clean room field increased by 108.1% year-on-year. Assembly and disassembly, coating and plastic sealing showed a significant decline, with a decrease of 35.3% and 48.5% respectively. Compared with the previous year, the market share of self-owned brand industrial robots in various fields has increased, and the proportion of coating and rubber sealing fields and processing fields has increased by 27.3 and 20.1 percentage points respectively.
The application industry of robots is constantly expanding
From the perspective of application industries, the electrical and electronic equipment and equipment manufacturing industry has become the primary application industry in the Chinese market for the eighth consecutive year, with sales of 80,000 units in 2023, down 22.2% year-on-year, accounting for 28.2% of the total sales volume in the Chinese market, down 6.3 percentage points from 2022, and the purchasing power of the automotive industry has declined, with 68,000 industrial robots purchased throughout the year, down 12.2% year-on-year, and the proportion of total sales in the Chinese market has dropped to 24.1%, down 2 percentage points from the previous year. Procurement in the metal and machinery manufacturing industry was a few supporting factors, with annual sales of 42,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 34.1%; The annual purchases of plastic products and food manufacturing fell by 7.6% and 1.3% year-on-year, respectively. In 2023, the application industry of independent brand industrial robots will continue to expand, and since 2013, it has covered 71 industry categories and 236 industry categories of the national economy.
The density of robots in the manufacturing industry is at a record high
The density of robots in China's manufacturing industry continues to increase, from 25 units per 10,000 people in 2013 to 470 units per 10,000 people in 2023, which is nearly three times the global average, and the ranking has jumped from the 30th place in the world in 2013 to the third place in the world, second only to South Korea and Singapore.
