"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily", November 26 (Reporter Zhang Yangyang) Today, the global collaborative robot giant Universal Robots (hereinafter referred to as "Universal Robots") officially launched two new collaborative robot products designed for the Chinese market - UR7e and UR12e, which have been pre-ordered and are scheduled to start shipping in January 2025.
"China is the world's largest cobot market, but it is also the most competitive place with a harsh market environment. Having experience in the Chinese market, we can apply the experience of the Chinese market to a wider range of countries and regions. In an interview with the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily and other media, Tero Tolonen, global chief product officer of Universal Robots, said.
As a branch of industrial robots, collaborative robots still maintain strong resilience under pressure in the entire industrial robot market. Compared with traditional industrial robots, collaborative robots pursue more flexibility, rapid deployment and safe collaboration, and break the limitations of traditional industrial scenarios when applied in industrial scenarios.
In recent years, the high prosperity of China's new energy industry has continued, and manufacturers have competed for efforts in large-load products, and at the same time, thanks to the significant progress of force control technology and machine vision technology, the application ability of collaborative robots in various complex and fine operation scenarios has been greatly expanded.
As new energy industry manufacturers such as BYD and CATL began to introduce collaborative robots in batches, the demand for collaborative robots in the industrial field continued to be released, and the demand for medium and large load collaborative robots began to gradually increase, especially in scenarios such as depalletizing, transportation, and welding.
Universal Robots has said that it has officially established a production capacity in China, bringing part of the manufacturing, including the supply chain, to China.
Stacey Moser, Universal Robots' global chief commercial officer, said that there is no place in the world where the opportunity for collaborative robotics technology is greater than that of the Chinese market, which accounts for more than 50% of the market, and the increase in sales of collaborative robots is mainly in China.
"China is the best choice to accelerate Universal Robots' growth, China is the first market for Universal Robots to establish overseas production capacity, and Made in China has supply chain advantages. The integration of the supply chain in China and the promotion of localization of production and services can bring cost and price advantages, and expand the application field of collaborative robots from traditional automotive electronics to medical, logistics, food and beverage and other industries. Stacey Moser said.
But on the other hand, the involution of the entire collaborative robot market is also intensifying, on the one hand, the robot service requirements are higher, and on the other hand, it must be cost-effective. The continuous decline in prices is the best example of the competition among manufacturers. Even as an industry giant, Universal Robots is emphasizing the price power of its two new products and its ability to provide customized and localized customer service.
Yilin Xu, President of Universal Robots China, said that the current but core challenge is the increasing demand of customers for cobot solutions, products, software and services, and they have high standards in terms of cost, quality and delivery time.
"From an industry perspective, Universal Robots believes that the traditional automotive sector, including vehicle manufacturing, parts production and automotive electronics, as well as metalworking, 3C and semiconductors, is a key area where we can accelerate our expansion through the implementation of our localization strategy." Xu Yilin said.