"The outlook for the robotics industry is optimistic," says Milton Guerry, President of the International Federation of Robotics. "In China, where the coronavirus lockdown first came into force, the economic recovery of the robotics industry already started again in 2020. A total of 167,000 industrial robots were delivered."

The dynamic market in China is also having a clearly positive effect on the economy of foreign suppliers. With an increase in sales of 24%, 123,000 industrial robots were sold by foreign companies. Japanese companies have a dominant market share. Chinese suppliers delivered 44,000 units to their home market. This corresponds to an increase of 8% compared to 2019.
Global robot installations fell by 2% in 2020, particularly due to the coronavirus pandemic. The result was therefore more moderate than expected.

For 2021, the OECD is forecasting global GDP growth of 5.5% in 2021 and 4% in 2022. However, the situation in the various economies is mixed.

Incoming orders in the robotics industry suggest strong growth for North America and Europe in 2021. Order books in the USA are already filling up quickly. In Germany, the forecast shows a strong recovery for the current year and signals a turnaround for the industry. Even better sales figures can be achieved if the current supply bottlenecks for key components can be overcome quickly.

Reducing the CO2 footprint

In addition, the global path to climate neutrality is generating new business. In order to achieve ambitious climate targets, economies have begun to scale up renewable energies and environmental technologies on an unprecedented scale. Robotics and automation are enabling companies of all sizes to produce the necessary components. These include, for example, fuel cells for hydrogen-powered cars, batteries for the transportation sector and solar cells in the energy segment. A new generation of easy-to-use robotics is helping to optimize production processes and bring manufacturing closer to regional markets at competitive costs.

"Robotics has proven that it makes it possible to adapt production quickly and react flexibly to changes in demand and smaller batch sizes," says Milton Guerry. "The benefits of increased productivity secure jobs and keep companies competitive."