Industrial robot component revenues to exceed $9 billion by 2025

The industrial robot industry is expected to exceed $9 billion by 2025 and show a healthy rebound after a tumultuous period due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Interact Analysis December 2, 2021
Courtesy: Interact Analysis

Interact Analysis shows the market for industrial robot components will enjoy strong double-digit growth in 2021, marking a clear turnaround after two years of disruption. However, 2021 market growth in revenue terms can be partially explained by major price increases in key components and raw materials, as well as supply chain issues and general inflationary pressure.

The key components markets covered by the report – motors, drives, gearboxes, controllers, teach pendants, sensors, end effectors, and machine vision – are all forecast for growth of varying degrees. Machine vision and end effectors will see the strongest performance as a result of particularly strong growth in the complex robotics systems that require these components. End effectors, which is the largest individual component market, will enjoy above average growth right out to 2025, by which time the sector will be worth more than $2.5 billion. Meanwhile, the combined market for motors, drives, and gearboxes will exceed that of end effectors, although a high proportion of these components are manufactured in-house by robot manufacturers themselves.

End effectors remain the strongest type of robot component sold. Courtesy: Interact Analysis

End effectors remain the strongest type of robot component sold. Courtesy: Interact Analysis

Machine vision was the only sector to remain stable throughout the pandemic, as demand for this technology outweighed wider problems in the market and the supply chain. All other component sectors suffered market decline in 2019 and 2020. This was the knock-on effect of a severe decline in the wider industrial robot market caused by weak consumer demand for automotive and electronic products, and a difficult market for machine builders; followed by the impact of COVID-19.

Asia dominates industrial robot component market

Industrial robot components is a market dominated by Japan, with China close behind. And, compared with these two countries, the market opportunity for robot components in the rest of the world is small. China will exceed Japanese unit production levels of industrial robots by 2022.  However, revenues for industrial robot components will remain larger in Japan right out to 2025 – the end of the forecast period in the research, partly because Japan will remain the largest producer of higher payload (and therefore more expensive) articulated robots.

The strongest regions for robot components are Japan and China, dwarfing the rest of the global market. Courtesy: Interact Analysis

The strongest regions for robot components are Japan and China, dwarfing the rest of the global market. Courtesy: Interact Analysis

“Although the total market for key components used in articulated robots suffered the most between 2018 & 2020, mainly because of the automotive slowdown, component revenues in this sub-sector of robotics remained the largest by a significant margin. However, the articulated robot component market is dominated by well-entrenched vendors” said Tim Dawson, senior research director at Interact Analysis. “In contrast, the collaborative robot component market is much more open to new entrants and is also growing strongly. Collaborative robot component revenues will exceed $1.1 billion by 2025.”

– Edited from an Interact Analysis press release by CFE Media. Interact Analysis is a CFE Media content partner.

Original content can be found at Control Engineering.