Machine substitutions: the output of industrial robots increased by 50.4% in the first five months

In recent years, China's robot output has maintained rapid growth. The sales volume of 90,000 units last year was close to 1/3 of the global market share, and China has become the world's largest industrial robot market for four consecutive years. Data predicts that by 2018, China's industrial robot market will reach 150,000 units.

The density of robots in China is much lower than the world average. With the gradual disappearance of the demographic dividend and industrial transformation and upgrading, the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other places are currently promoting the replacement of robots, which has brought unprecedented huge opportunities to the Chinese robot industry.

However, in the face of competition with foreign brands, China’s robot manufacturing industry has long faced problems such as core technology and parts being restricted by people, low-end repeated construction, and “small, scattered, and weak” enterprises. Large-scale machine substitutions have an impact on the domestic robot industry. It's also a severe test.

Promote machine substitutions in many places

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on June 14 showed that China’s industrial robot output in May was 10057 (units/sets), achieving a rapid growth of 47%. This is not a single-month phenomenon: the robotics industry has maintained a steady in recent years. High growth rate. In the first five months of this year, the output of industrial robots increased by 50.4%.

Looking ahead, China's industrial robot market has been expanding at a very high rate in the past 7 years. According to a report recently released by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the sales volume of industrial robots in China was 90,000 units in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 31%, which was much higher than the world average growth rate of 14%.

From 2010 to 2016, China’s industrial robot market has increased by more than five times. Since 2013, China has become the world’s largest industrial robot market for four consecutive years. Its share of the global market has increased from 1/5 of 2013 to It reached 1/4 in 2014, and it was close to 1/3 last year.

Behind this is China's ascendant machine substitution boom. Xu Xiaolan, secretary-general of the World Robot Conference, told the 21st Century Business Herald that although from a national perspective, there has not been a large-scale robot substitution phenomenon, but this trend has already appeared in the eastern coastal areas represented by Guangdong and Zhejiang.

She said that on the one hand, the declining demographic dividend and rising labor costs in the above-mentioned regions are forcing manufacturing companies to replace people with machines; on the other hand, with the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the production method is changing to fine and flexible. Manual operations may be difficult to undertake new jobs, and companies cannot recruit the required labor force, and can only perform machine substitutions.

According to Yao Zhiju, deputy secretary general of the China Robot Industry Alliance, the layout of the robotics industry overlaps with the phenomenon of machine substitutions. He pointed out that the current regional distribution of machine substitutions is most concentrated in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. Among them, the Pearl River Delta is represented by Guangzhou and Foshan, and the application of industrial robots is very large; the Yangtze River Delta is represented by Shanghai and Jiangsu, where several giants of robot manufacturing have their layouts.

In addition, he said that there are currently two regions with relatively large potential. One is the Bohai Rim, where industrial robots are developing rapidly in Liaoning and Tangshan; the other is the inland region represented by Chongqing.

Qu Daokui, chairman of the China Robot Industry Alliance and President of Siasun Robotics, told the 21st Century Business Herald that the traditional advantages of Chinese companies are low-cost and labor-intensive. The most demanding machine substitutions are industries with high technology and capital-intensive industries. , As China’s industrial transformation and upgrading will be accompanied by the re-allocation of employees.

However, Xu Xiaolan does not believe that machine substitution will bring about employment problems. She believes that machine substitution itself is the "fruit" of the disappearance of the demographic dividend. There is an urgent need to cultivate skilled workers that meet the requirements of the new era to promote industrial transformation and upgrading.

Opportunities and challenges coexist in the robotics industry

The emerging wave of machine substitutions has brought unprecedented opportunities to the robotics industry.

According to the "Robot Industry Development Plan (2016-2020)" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other three ministries and commissions last year, by 2020, the annual output of China's independent brand industrial robots will reach 100,000 units, and the annual output of six-axis and above industrial robots will reach 50,000. Above the station.

According to IFR forecasts, by 2018, China's industrial robot market will reach 150,000 units; by 2020, the number of industrial robots in China will be more than 800,000 units, and the robot density (the number of industrial robots used by every 10,000 workers) will reach more than 150.

From a global perspective, the average global manufacturing robot density in 2015 was 66, among which the robot density of industrially developed countries generally exceeded 200, but the value in China was only 36. From this point of view, China's industrial robot market has a huge space.

However, is China's robotics industry ready for large-scale machine substitutions? Xu Xiaolan is not so sure about this. In her view, China’s robotics industry is still immature, independent innovation, and core components are still fragile. Blindly promoting machine substitutions on a large scale will inevitably lead to the direct import of core robot components from abroad. Even the whole machine gave way to the huge Chinese market.

From the structural point of view, the industrial robot is mainly composed of four parts: the main body, the servo motor, the joint reducer and the controller. At present, in addition to the three key components outside the main body, the reducer and the servo motor are basically monopolized by foreign companies. Domestic robot manufacturers are constrained by others in terms of key components, and basically have no bargaining power, and even the cost of the whole machine is compared with the imported whole machine. Upside down is very passive in market competition with foreign companies.

According to Qu Daokui's calculations, the cost of imported motors and reducers for Chinese robots accounts for about 70% of the total cost of robots.

In terms of application, Chinese robots are facing the dilemma of marginalization of the high-end market. Qu Daokui introduced that, in the field of multi-joint robots, foreign companies currently account for 90% of the market share, and foreign brands of industrial robots with more than six axes account for 85% of the market; in the field of difficult welding, foreign companies account for 84%. ; In the relatively high-end automobile manufacturing industry, foreign companies account for 90%. The application of domestic robot equipment is mainly concentrated in general industrial fields such as handling, palletizing, loading and unloading.

The other side of high-end competition is the repeated construction of low-end enterprises. The problem of "small, scattered, and weak" enterprises is prominent.

According to Li Dong, Director of the Equipment Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, there are currently more than 800 companies producing robots in China, of which more than 200 are robot body manufacturers, most of which are mainly assembled and processed on behalf of them, and are at the low end of the industrial chain. The industry concentration is low and the overall scale is small. At the same time, there are more than 40 industrial parks in various places that focus on the development of robots, and there is a hidden concern of low-end excess.

Among the large number of companies, more than 90% of the companies have a scale of less than 100 million yuan. Even the leading company Shenyang Xinsong, its 2015 sales revenue was only 1.69 billion yuan, which is the same as the sales revenue of Yaskawa, Fanuc, ABB, etc. Compared with the tens of billions of international robot giants, their competitiveness is insufficient.

"Rather than replacing people with machines, we should be more concerned about whether China's robotics industry has the ability to innovate independently and occupy these markets in the face of the huge domestic market potential." Xu Xiaolan said.