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 Already the biggest market in the $9.5 billion (6 billion pound)
global robot trade -- or $29 billion including associated software,
peripherals and systems engineering -- China lags far behind its
more industrialized peers in terms of robot density.
China has just 30 robots per 10,000 workers employed in
manufacturing industries, compared with 437 in South Korea, 323 in
Japan, 282 in Germany and 152 in the United States.
But a race by carmakers to build plants in China along with wage
inflation that has eroded the competitiveness of Chinese labor will
push the operational stock of industrial robots to more than double
to 428,000 by 2017, the IFR estimates.
"Companies are forced to invest ever more in robots to be more
productive and raise quality," said Gudrun Litzenberger, general
secretary of the Frankfurt-based IFR.
"In the current phase it's the auto industry, but in the next two or
three years it will be driven by the electronics industry," she
said.
Japanese robot makers still have the lion's share of the market,
with about 60 percent, but Chinese suppliers are growing fast, with
about a quarter of the market. Most of the rest are supplied by
European and U.S. manufacturers.
Four foreign robot makers -- Switzerland's ABB, Germany's Kuka, and
Japan's Yaskawa and Fanuc -- already have production sites in China
and more are expected to follow.
"The automation of China's production plants has just started," said
Per Vegard Nerseth, Managing Director of ABB Robotics. "We have
witnessed swift, almost explosive growth over the last two or three
years, surpassing even our expectations."
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The automotive industry is by far the largest customer for robots in
China, accounting for about 40 percent of robots in operation, as
China is both the world's biggest car market and its biggest
production site.
European carmakers such as Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE> and Daimler which
have invested heavily in China are bringing their robotics suppliers
with them, Litzenberger said.
The electronics industry is expected to follow.
Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant Foxconn, which makes Apple
iPhones and iPads among other products, is already making its own
Foxbot robots as well as using robots bought from other suppliers.
(Editing by Mark Potter)
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