China Seeks to Join Top 10 Robotics Nations by 2020

Aug 01, 2016

China is looking to aggressively expand its robotics market at home and join the top 10 of the world’s most intensively automated nations by 2020, skyrocketing from their current rank of 28th.

As of now, China’s manufacturing industry has a ratio of 36 robot units per 10,000 employees. The China Machinery Industry Federation has announced that its goal is to more than quadruple this number to 150 robot units per 10,000 employees in less than four years.

As a point of reference, South Korea stands in first place with 478 units, while the US occupies 7th place at 164.

For China to try and claim 8th place in the robots per employees ranking, they would have to domestically produce and sell 100,000 industrial robots annually from now until 2020.

Today, Chinese manufacturers account for only 31 percent of the sales volume in their domestic industrial robot market. Foreign manufacturers command the remaining 69 percent of the market share.

Chinese manufacturers only accounted for 25 percent of the domestic market share in 2013.

“By the end of 2020, I reckon that the share of the domestic market enjoyed by Chinese robotic manufacturers could well increase to 50 percent,” said Dr. Daokui Qu, CEO of the Chinese robot maker Siasun, at the recent International Federation of Robotics CEO Round Table in Munich.

The fast growth the Chinese market is experiencing is largely motivated by the Made in China 2025 (MiC2025) policy, incentivising manufacturers to take on quality-over-quantity philosophies, as well as a drive to innovate in industrial automation in an effort to become a high-quality manufacturing nation.

Midea Enters Fortune Global 500 as Shares in KUKA reach 85.7 Percent

Chinese companies like Midea seem to be taking the policy seriously.

Midea recently took control over Kuka after the company claimed 85.7 percent of the German company’s shares in a USD$4.4 billion bid.

The home appliance manufacturer turned smart automation mogul announced that it has entered the Fortune Global 500 for the first time at 481st, after the updated ranking of the world’s largest corporations were declared on July 20th.

Midea has invested $3 billion in research and development over the past five years and now operates R&D institutes in the US, Japan, Germany, Italy and Singapore.

The Chinese company also acquired Toshiba’s home appliance business this year and 80 percent of the Italian air-conditioning manufacturer Clivet, for $145 million.

Midea’s global platform now operates more than 200 subsidiaries, nine strategic business units and several full-scale operations covering R&D, manufacturing and sales in six countries, including Vietnam, India, Belarus, Egypt, Brazil and Argentina.

Midea and Foxconn are prime examples of how China’s MiC2025 policy is working to incentivize its major manufacturers. This is also something Western manufacturers and policy-makers need to keep an eye on if they don’t want to be taken off guard when 2025 finally rolls around.

 

Source: ENGINEERING.com