© VDMA

China has become the leading sales market for robotics. With around 68,600 units sold in 2015, the statistics were 20% higher than the previous year, exceeding the sales volume of all European markets combined (50,100 units). In 2016, sales will increase by a total of 30% and between 2017 and 2019 by an average of 20% per year to over 400,000 units. This will account for 40% of global deliveries in 2019. In order to achieve the target set by Beijing of a robot density of 150 units by 2020, around 600,000 to 650,000 new industrial robots would have to be installed in China by then. By comparison, around 254,000 units were sold on the global market in 2015.