New areas bring more opportunities

From 2013 to 2018, the Chinese industrial robot market developed rapidly, but by 2018, the Chinese robot market declined for the first time.

PFVO142 Song Xiaogang said that this decline has a feature, foreign brands fell by 7.6%, independent brands still maintain 16.2% growth. In terms of application areas, handling and loading and unloading are still the most important areas, followed by welding, which is the field of application of various industries in China’s large and wide manufacturing industry.

“In 2018, when everyone was preparing to do a big job, suddenly came to a ‘sudden brake’ and the industry showed negative growth.” Qu Daokui said, so we are particularly concerned about this year’s data.

PFVO142 China Robot Industry Alliance released the statistics of self-owned brand industrial robots in the Chinese market in the first half of 2019 at the conference. Data show that in the first half of 2019, the cumulative sales of independent brand industrial robots were 19,000 units, down 13.6% year-on-year, which is the first decline since the statistics. From the enterprise level, in the increasingly severe market environment, leading enterprises and high-quality enterprises can still maintain a certain growth, but more enterprises have declined in production and sales.

“In the past, the automotive industry accounted for the largest market share in the robotics industry.” Qu Daokui said that the main reason for the decline of the entire Chinese robot market is still related to the significant decline in the market share of the automotive industry. From the perspective of emerging applications of robots, such as metal processing, plastics and chemicals, especially in the food industry, growth has been very fast in recent years.

PFVO142 “In emerging segments, market demand forces innovation in the robot industry.” Song Xiaogang said that China’s robot development is moving from the industry formation period to the industrial development period, the robot industry needs to pay attention to the segmentation of industries and different application scenarios of the market expansion, each enterprise to find the industry is good at, and carry out the corresponding process technology research and development. We should pay attention to coordinated development and pay attention to the integration and development of new technologies such as information technology, communication technology and artificial intelligence. Focus on the research and development of a new generation of robots and intelligent robots to meet the needs of the continuous transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry and seize the commanding heights of the development of the robot industry.

PFVO142 “Robotics should be a multidisciplinary integrated technology, no matter how big the enterprise, want to get everything done, the result is not done, do not do well, do not do fine.” Zhao Jie, a professor at Harbin Institute of Technology and director of the Robotics Research Institute, believes that companies should think about how to do a good job of a technology, and the cycle is longer. For example, he said that some German companies are taking the road of “specialization and excellence”, “we have to settle down and use ten years or decades to strive to do long-term.”

The future prospects of the market are promising

Liu Kun, general manager of Nanjing Panda Electronic Equipment Co., LTD., said that many projects now coming to the inquiry are millions of yuan or smaller projects, although these small and medium-sized enterprises automation transformation investment is not large, but its demand or expectation is to provide it with a world’s top or leading program. If our robot application technology or system integration technology and customer needs fully match, the future development space will be very large.

PFVO142 As for the future of the robotics industry, most of the participants agreed that the prospects are good.

Luo Junjie said that from an international point of view, robots and big data, artificial intelligence, 5G and other emerging technologies continue to integrate, promoting the industry into the fast track. From the domestic perspective, the application fields and scenarios continue to expand. In 2018, the application field of domestic industrial robots has expanded to 47 industry categories, 129 industry categories, and the application surface is still expanding, such as the service field has been extended to education, medical care, escort, distribution and other dimensions.

“Look at it objectively and rationally. In the long term, this may still be a golden period for structural optimization, and a critical period for steadfast hard work.” Mr Law said.

Zhao Jie believes that service robots will become an important battlefield for the world’s robot powers to compete for dominance in emerging industries. Service robots have not yet reached the outbreak period, and the future output value cannot be estimated. At the same time, he predicted that by 2035, China’s technology and industry in the field of robotics will rank among the world’s powers as a whole. In the field of special robots and service robots, China will enter the ranks of the world’s advanced countries as a whole, and some directions should be at the international leading level.

“Judging from the development trend, the market has a promising future.” Song Xiaogang said that the International Federation of Robotics expects the growth of global industrial robots to be flat by 2019, and will return to double-digit growth after 2020. The China Robot Industry Alliance predicts an average annual growth rate of more than 29% from 2020 to 2029.

“In terms of the big trend, industrial robots are in a big outbreak period, and the current data and market are just the beginning of the future robot market.” Qu Daokui believes that Chinese robots must have a very bright future. Therefore, robot enterprises should strengthen innovation, highlight the characteristics and advantages, and China will stand in the advanced ranks of robot manufacturing in the world in the future.