With the gradual disappearance of the demographic dividend, the long-term instability of the epidemic and other factors, the global manufacturing transformation and upgrading is about to start, and intelligent manufacturing will become the high point of traditional manufacturing competition.
With favorable policies and market boost, the robotics industry has shown great potential to the outside world, and is therefore quite sought after by the capital and technology camps, with frequent technical new products, a large influx of funds, industrial diversification and mergers and acquisitions, and an increasingly intense industry tussle. The high-pressure environment has also created a number of excellent Chinese robotics enterprises, such as Exton, Evert, Xinshida, Guangzhou NC, Xinsong, and Oibo, etc., which have attracted much attention in the market. The collaborative robots have become the biggest dark horse in the robotics industry this year with the advantages of safety, low cost and easy operation, and are supported and affirmed by more and more users.
This year, collaborative, surgical, storage, service, cleaning, industrial and other robot categories blossomed and the track was hot. To this end, Intelligent Robotics Business takes stock of news events that have occurred in the robotics industry over the past year, evaluating them according to industry depth, impact significance, and event size, and preferably selecting the top 10 hottest and most influential news, to see what robotics companies are making changes that are affecting the global robotics industry, reshaping the robotics business landscape, and allowing people to redefine the future trends of the robotics industry.
China's robot density rises to: 246 robots per 10,000 people by 2021
The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) has released World Robotics 2021 Industrial Robots, which shows that there are 3 million industrial robots operating in factories around the world today, an increase of 10%. Asia remains the world's largest market for industrial robots, with installations in China up 20%, with 168,400 units shipped and an operating inventory of 943,223 units, up 21%, and set to surpass the 1 million unit mark in 2021.
China's robot density, which grew from 49 units per 10,000 people in 2015 to 246 units per 10,000 people, ranked ninth among all countries and regions in the world.
Samsung establishes a robotics business unit
Samsung Electronics has established a robotics business team that will actively promote the commercialization of home robots. Samsung Electronics plans to launch related products as soon as possible, and is also expected to make large-scale investments in related businesses. Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong said in August that the company will invest 240 trillion won (about 1.29 trillion yuan) in future technologies over the next three years.
"Medical insurance" policy, so the surgical robot to the new blue ocean
As the level of medical technology continues to rise, surgical robots are being used on the ground, and there are breakthroughs in product technology, but the high cost of equipment and medical costs have made it difficult to apply them to the general public for a long time. In addition, the medical insurance bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai have included surgical robots in their medical insurance policies, which will allow for a corresponding quota of reimbursement. At that time, robots will become the most powerful weapon to treat diseases, and a new blue ocean will be born!
Bionic robots are hotly sought after
The bionic robots are being sought after by the technology camp, with Xiaomi launching CyberDog, a four-legged bionic robot nicknamed "Tie Dan", on August 10, and Elon Musk bringing Tesla Bot, a bionic robot, to the Tesla AI Day on August 20. Shenzhen Pengxing Intelligent Research Company, and released the first intelligent bionic quadruped robot - the world's first rideable intelligent machine horse, Xiao Bai Long. Earlier Huawei, Baidu and others have launched their own bionic robots.
Midea plans to fully acquire Kuka Robotics
According to the announcement, Midea Group will continue to acquire the remaining 5.45% stake to achieve a wholly-owned holding in KUKA. Prior to that, in 2016, Midea Group had already made a bid for KUKA, when its shareholding accounted for 94.55% after the acquisition, and KUKA will also be delisted from the Frankfurt exchange after the acquisition is completed. At present, the robotics industry will be a crucial step in the multi-industry layout of the United States.
Robotics industry track is hot with continuous financing
How hot is the investment wave in robotics in 2021? See the following set of data, you'll understand! Data show that in the first 11 months of this year alone, 318 robotics companies received financing, with a total amount of over 32.9 billion yuan, and is expected to reach 36.2 billion yuan for the whole year, with an average of over 100 million yuan per financing. Capital continues to be injected, industrial mergers and acquisitions are beginning to accelerate, companies are strengthening R&D and manufacturing, products are being updated and iterated, and the overall development of the robotics industry is looking thriving.
Boston Dynamics has been resold one after another
The development of Boston Dynamics can be described as a series of twists and turns, because of the difficulty of commercial landing of products, resulting in its acquisition by Google in 2013, Google sold it to SoftBank Group in 2017, as of June 2021, Hyundai announced the completion of the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, accounting for 80% of shares, SoftBank still retains 20% of shares.
City of Robots: Foshan Shunde
In the first three quarters of this year, the Shunde area of Foshan Sanlong Bay has welcomed leading domestic and foreign robotics enterprises such as Kawasaki, Exton, Blue Fatty and ZhongShe, with the benefits of industrial agglomeration becoming increasingly prominent. Shunde District and even the South China mechanical equipment and robot core parts field blank.
Foshan Shunde is actively laying out a number of emerging strategic industries, intelligent robotics is one of them. According to Shunde's "14th Five-Year Plan", by 2025, Shunde's intelligent robotics industry cluster will strive to "100 billion" and build a robotics industry with world influence.
SoftBank Robotics sells its Pepper robot business
SoftBank Group is in talks to sell its Pepper robotics business in Paris, France, to German robotics company United Robotics Group, which was built by Foxconn in China to help solve labor shortages but has had trouble finding a global customer base. Pepper sells for $30,000 in the U.S., but its price and performance are often in question.
"Collaborative robots" are the biggest dark horse of 2021
IFR data shows that from 2015-2025, the CAGR of traditional industrial robots and collaborative robots is 8.4% and 56.5%, respectively, and the collaborative robot track is full of momentum. Throughout the domestic market environment, collaborative robots have achieved 14,372 unit shipments in the vertical, occupying 32.2% of the global market. Among them, domestic brands have become the number one player, such as Oceanic, Elit, Yuejiang, section card, large family and other collaborative robot manufacturers, occupying about 70% of the domestic market share, while the market share of the internationally renowned enterprise YouAo robot once fell to about 20%. Now in a flash, collaborative robots have bucked the trend to become the biggest dark horse of the year, much sought after and loved by entrepreneurs and investors!
