As the world's largest robot market, Made in China is trying to overtake

Instead of huge factories with few workers, rows of robots line lines to make, assemble and ship products to the world......It's a scene that has been portrayed in countless science fiction movies.China, by far, is the most likely place for these scenarios to happen.

China has become the world's largest robot market, according to a CCTV financial report.From January to October, China produced 298,000 sets of industrial robots, up 51.9 percent year on year.Advanced manufacturing, represented by industrial robots, is becoming a new driving force for China's economic growth, the report added.

As a traditional industrial country, in the rapid changes, the domestic robot market to "Chinese speed" after the first.

Hot, industrial pulse support billions of market

China's robot market is expected to reach 83.9 billion yuan in 2021, with an average growth rate of 18.3 percent from 2016 to 2023, including 44.57 billion yuan for industrial robots, 30.26 billion yuan for service robots and 9.07 billion yuan for special robots, the report added.

The industrial robot category, which accounts for the largest proportion, is expected to break through 58.9 billion yuan in 2023.It can be said that Chinese industry largely supports half of the domestic robot market.

According to the Report of the International Federation of Robotics, China was the main end-use market for industrial robots in 2019, with 141,000 new units installed annually.Since 2013, China has led the world in the number of industrial robots for eight consecutive years.

Statistics show that China's industrial added value increased 971 times in just over 50 years from 12 billion yuan in 1952 to more than 30 trillion yuan in 2018, with an average annual growth of 11%.By 2019, China was the only country in the world with all industrial sectors.

The strong industrial pulse of the new era undoubtedly drives the large demand for robots.

It is understood that new energy vehicles and other emerging industries in China's industrial field has become the fastest growing part, and "automation, digitalization" is one of the significant characteristics of its manufacturing process.Saic Volkswagen's new energy vehicle factory, for example, has used more than 1,400 industrial robots, and the automation rate of the final assembly workshop is nearly 45% higher than that of traditional workshops.

Combined with the impact of the epidemic, major factories are facing difficulties in recruiting workers and starting work.Faced with the immediate threat of capacity stagnation, automation is the first and most urgent solution.Therefore, when the global robot market declined due to the epidemic in 2020, the domestic market did not decline but increased, with the market size reaching 42.25 billion, an increase of 18.9% compared with 2019.

The increasingly huge demand, coupled with a solid foundation of industrial manufacturing, in the eyes of robot enterprises all over the world, China's market has undoubtedly become an endless blue sea.

Break the rule, domestic forces to catch up

Despite the huge market, foreign companies had dominated China's industrial robot market until 10 years ago.

Kuka of Germany, ABB of Switzerland, Yaskawa Electric and Fanuc of Japan, known as the world's "four families" of industrial robots, have the most advanced technology and the most comprehensive industry line.They were also the four big mountains standing in the domestic market at that time. Some data show that these four enterprises accounted for more than 80% of the market share in about 10 years.

But now, the domestic robot enterprise has faintly to catch up with the trend.The most famous is Nanjing Eston, Anhui Eifert, Guangzhou CNC, New Song four enterprises, known as the "domestic four dragons".According to relevant data, the market share of pure domestic industrial robots has been rising steadily and is expected to break through 40% in 21 years.

In order to break the blockade, the first thing that needs to be overcome is technology.

Previously, due to the lack of core technology, domestic robot production has been controlled by the "four big families", can only produce low-end products, and core high-end parts still need to be imported.

In order to break down technological barriers, domestic companies have tried all kinds of ways.The most obvious way is to acquire or joint venture foreign high-tech enterprises to accelerate the development of their own technology.

Take Nanjing Eston, one of the "four little Dragons", for example.From 2016 to 2017, Eston acquired seven overseas robot companies, and in 2020, it acquired CLOOs, the world's leading welding company, thus acquiring many core manufacturing technologies.According to the latest market rankings, Eston ranks among the top 10 robots in the global market, and some even predict that it will reach number one in the world by 2025.

In addition, Kuka, one of the former "four families", was also acquired by Midea and privatized.Analysis of the personage inside course of study, technical barrier at home and abroad will be eliminated greatly accordingly.

In order to comprehensively improve the ability of technological innovation, the national manufacturing innovation Center, which is composed of enterprises, scientific research institutes and universities, has been set up since 2016, and the robot industry is also included in the center.Today, domestic robot technology has been able to reach the "replacement" stage, meeting the needs of most industrial production.

In addition, the power of "Made in China" is also inseparable from the good news brought by state support.In recent years, China has issued a series of policies and regulations on the robot industry. In September, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology took the lead in formulating the development plan for the robot industry in the 14th Five-Year Plan.

With a strong push, domestic robot enterprises have mushroomed, with the number of industrial robot enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta alone exceeding 3,000.In addition, data show that by October 2021, a total of 70 financing events have taken place in China's industrial robot enterprises, with a total financing amount of nearly 20 billion YUAN, all exceeding the data of 20 years.

In general, China's robot market is in a period of rapid development, foreign enterprises are still dominant, but domestic forces are not lagging behind.On the contrary, under many favorable factors, the future from "domestic substitution" to "domestic transcendence" is worth looking forward to.