We are happy to announce the final figures of World Robotics 2019 today: Both the industrial as well as the service robot markets grew considerably in 2018.

Dear Reader,

We are happy to announce the final figures of World Robotics 2019 today: Both the industrial as well as the service robot markets grew considerably in 2018.

The results for the industrial robots’ market exceeded those of our April forecast. Despite the difficult times for the main customer industries, automotive and electrical/electronics, and the lingering trade conflict between two of the main destinations, China and the USA, imposing uncertainty to the global economy, 2018 has been the sixth consecutive year with a record annual unit sales volume. 422,000 new industrial robots were sold in 2018, a growth of 6% compared to 2017. The global robotics market volume rose to US$ 16.5 billion. The global operational stock rose beyond 2.4 million robots.

This growth also comes as a surprise as two of the 5 major markets for robotics saw a downturn in the number of new installations: China and the Republic of Korea. But this was covered up by an above-average growth by the remaining three, Japan, the United States and Germany.

We are also proud to be able to present the first statistics on collaborative robots this year: Slightly less than 14,000 industrial robots installed were cobots, corresponding to only 3% of the overall industrial robot market. This figures underspins the IFR’s position that the market for collaborative robots is still in its infancy. Users and integrators are still gaining experience on what works and doesn’t in the design and implementation of collaborative applications. Technology developments in sensors and grippers hold promise for expanding the range of actions that the robot end-effector can perform. Programming interfaces will continue to become more intuitive, not just for cobots, but also for traditional industrial robots.

The service robotics market is also growing at high pace: The number of service robots for personal and domestic use increased by 59% to about 16.3 million units in 2018 reaching a value of US$ 3.66 billion (up 15%). The number of professional service robots sold in 2018 rose by 61% to more than 271,000 units, the sales value increased by 32% to USD 9.2 billion.

This flourishing service robotics scene, amongst other examples of robotics technology, can be witnessed during the 14th RobotWorld, which is the biggest specialized robotics exhibition in Korea, held from October 9 to 12 in Seoul.

The IFR community will gather again on December 17, in connection to the iREX exhibition in Tokyo. The 23rd iREX, hosted from December 18 to 21 at Tokyo Big Sight, will showcase next-generation robot technology from robot manufacturers and robot-related companies from around the world and provide the opportunity for business talks exchange of technology. We are looking forward to meeting you there!

Best wishes,

Junji Tsuda