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In recent years, the global robot industry has developed rapidly. In the fields of catering, public services, logistics and transportation, we are seeing more and more Robots. With the increase in demand, major companies around the world have accelerated the research and development of commercial robots.

Robots are known as “the jewel at the top of the manufacturing crown”, and their R&D, manufacturing, and application are important symbols to measure a country’s technological innovation and high-end manufacturing level.

The “China Robot Industry Development Report (2022)” shows that in 2021, the operating income of my country’s Robot Industry will exceed 130 billion yuan, and the output of Industrial robots will reach 366,000 units, an increase of 10 times compared with 2015, ranking the world’s largest Industrial Robot market . 101 specialized and special new “little giant” enterprises have accelerated their growth. Industrial robots have been widely used in automobiles, electronics, machinery and other fields. Service robots and special robots have shown their talents in education, medical care, logistics and other fields. New industries, New model, new format.

In recent years, my country’s robot industry has continued to maintain a good momentum of rapid growth, and has achieved important breakthroughs in terms of technology and industrial scale. In this context, how the robot industry will grow healthily has gradually become a hot topic in the industry.

01. The overall operation of the industrial robot industry

1. Definition and classification of industrial robots

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) considers a robot to be a programmable actuator capable of moving within its environment to perform a desired task, with a degree of autonomy. Referring to the classification standard of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), robots can be divided into industrial robots and service robots. Among them, industrial robots refer to multi-joint manipulators or multi-degree-of-freedom robots for the industrial field, which can replace humans to perform frequent and repetitive long-term operations in scenarios such as welding, handling, palletizing, packaging, spraying, and cutting.

According to the function, industrial robots can be divided into handling robots (palletizing, sorting), processing robots (casting and forging, stamping, cutting, precision machining), assembly robots (packaging, disassembly) and spraying robots. According to the characteristics of mechanical structure, industrial robots are mainly divided into articulated robots, rectangular coordinate robots, cylindrical coordinate robots, parallel robots, and planar articulated robots (SCARA).

2. Analysis of industrial robot industry chain

The industry chain of the industrial robot industry is divided into three key links: core parts, main body manufacturing, and system integration. Among them, the core parts (reducers, servo systems, controllers, etc.) have the highest added value, and there are many market participants in the main body manufacturing. More intense, the number of system integrators is large but small. At present, my country has become the world’s largest industrial robot market, but the retention density is still lower than that of advanced countries and regions, and the market size is still in a stage of rapid growth.

The manufacturing of core components is the link with the highest cost in the entire industrial chain link of industrial robots. According to the statistics of Toubao Research Institute, the cost of the controller and reducer accounted for more than 70% of the upstream core components, and the main body manufacturing process accounted for about 20%. This is mainly because the core functions of industrial robots are mainly provided by the control system and drive system, and the control system and drive system belong to the core components of industrial robots, and the technical barriers are higher than other links. than higher.

There are many mid-stream ontology manufacturers and competition is incentivized. However, the production cost of domestic industrial robot companies is significantly higher than that of international companies, and it is difficult to form a price advantage. Therefore, in the mid-stream ontology manufacturing process, the market share of Chinese companies is relatively small. Downstream system integrators mainly provide complete solutions for end-use customers through system development and integration. Although there are a large number of system integrators in my country, they are generally small in scale, and have price and service advantages in the low-end and mid-range fields.

02. China’s industrial robot industry is booming

“Robots are ‘showing their talents’ in more and more fields, constantly giving birth to new industries, new models and new formats.” Guo Shougang, deputy director of the Equipment Industry Division 1 of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said.

With the further development and popularization of information technologies such as 5G, cloud computing, big data, and the internet of Things, the growth of robot market demand and the acceleration of industrial transformation have injected strong momentum into the development of the robot industry, and the development of the robot industry is in good shape.

At present, the harmonious development of the robot industry benefits from two aspects: first, the national policy. As one of the national strategic emerging industries, robotics is the top priority for the country to develop from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power. Strong support. Second, the robot market demand. The sources of demand for robots can be divided into three categories: replacing labor, assisting labor, and creating new fields. Especially during the current epidemic period, my country has launched a variety of anti-epidemic robots, nucleic acid robots and other products in response to the requirements of epidemic prevention work. It can be seen that the market demand for robots has been greatly stimulated. At the same time, the fields involving robots have also extended from one to multiple, from industrial applications to agriculture, medical care, etc., and the coverage is expanding day by day.

Driven by multiple factors such as intensive domestic policies and a maturing market, China’s industrial robots have grown rapidly, and their applications cover 60 major industry categories and 168 industry categories in the national economy.

According to the data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in the fifth press conference of the “Industrial and Information Development in the New Era” series recently held by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the output of industrial robots in my country ranks first in the world. In addition, according to IFR statistical data, in the past five years, the scale of China’s industrial robot market has always maintained a growth trend. It is expected that the market size will continue to grow in 2022, eventually reaching US$8.7 billion; by 2024, it is expected to exceed US$11 billion.

03. Upstream manufacturers are more enthusiastic about putting into production

Although there is still a gap between domestic industrial robots and the world’s advanced level in some core technologies, thanks to the technological breakthroughs made by domestic companies in the field of core components in recent years, as well as the improvement in quality and price reduction of domestic industrial robot manufacturers, the domestic industrial robot industry has entered the a new round of outbreaks.

Major domestic manufacturers have continuously made achievements in the field of core robot components. At present, the entire industry’s attention and policy support have led to a continuous increase in the investment in the research and development of the entire domestic industrial robot, and some domestic robot brands have also emerged. It is believed that with the passage of time, the supply and share of these new domestic robot brands will gradually increase.

In the future, driven by the demand for industrial digital transformation and upgrading, robot-related technologies and talents will develop rapidly.