IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2017 - 12

Double-Digit Growth Highlights
a Boom in Robotics
By Martin Haegele

W

ith higher sales and pos-
itive forecasts for the com-
ing years, 2015 was another
successful year for the robot-
ics industry worldwide. This is confirmed
by rising sales of both industrial and ser-
vice robots.
Continuing Boom in
Industrial Robots
By 2019, more than 1.4 million new
industrial robots will be installed in fac-
tories around the world according to
the latest forecast from the International
Federation of Robotics. Broken down
by sector, around 70% of industrial
robots are currently used by the auto-
motive, electrical/electronics, and met-
alworking industries. In 2015, the
number of industrial robot installations
in the electronics industry showed the
strongest growth, with an increase of
18% (metalworking industry 16%,
automotive sector 10%).
In a global comparison, the coun-
tries of the European Union are espe-
cially highly developed in automation
in general. This is illustrated, for
example, by the robot density in the
automotive industry. Of the top ten
nations with the most industrial
robots per 10,000 employees, one
country in every two is a member of
the European Union.
With its national ten-year plan,
"Made in China 2025," China hopes to
join the club of high-tech top industrial-
ized nations within just a few years. To
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2017.2649298
Date of publication: 29 March 2017

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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meet Beijing's target of a robot density
of 150 units by 2020, China would have
to install a total of 600,000 to 650,000
new industrial robots until 2020. For
comparison, global sales in 2015
totaled around 254,000 units. However,
China already leads the world in terms
of unit sales: with around 68,600 units
sold, the figure for 2015 was 20% up on
the previous year, thus exceeding, for
example, the unit sales of all European
markets combined (50,100 units). Sales
figures are set to grow by a total of 30%
in 2016 and by an average of 20%
per year between 2017 and 2019 to over
400,000 units, i.e., 40% of global sales
in 2019.
South Korea and Japan rank sec-
ond and third among the world's

largest markets for industrial robots,
with the number of units sold in 2015
growing by 55% in South Korea and
by 20% in Japan. When it comes to
robot density in the manufacturing
industry, these two countries, together
with Singapore, lead the world rank-
ing of automated economies. Assuming
stable economic conditions, annual
sales of robots are expected to increase
in both South Korea and Japan by
an  average of 5% per year between
2016 and 2019.
The United States ranks fourth
among the world's largest individual
markets. In the North American Free
Trade Agreement free-trade area
(United States, Canada, and Mexico) as
a whole, the number of newly installed

400

414

350
300

254

250
200
150
100
50
0

2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019
Germany
Europe

Japan
China

North America
Worldwide

Figure 1. The industrial robot shipments worldwide in thousands of units (2016+
estimated).

MARCH 2017
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