Underneath strain from a turbulent marketplace for rates of interest, inflation, and labor, North American corporations began the yr by buying probably the most robots ever in a single quarter, with 11,595 robots offered at a price of $646 million, a brand new report reveals.
These first quarter statistics signify development of 28% in models offered and 43% in income over the identical quarter final yr, based on the Affiliation for Advancing Automation (A3). And compared to the earlier excessive water marks—which had been set simply three months in the past within the fourth quarter of 2021—they present development of seven% and 25% respectively.
All through the early a long time of robotics sector development, the automotive trade drove extra demand than different companies. Nonetheless, the primary quarter of 2022 marked the seventh out of the final 9 quarters the place non-automotive clients have ordered extra robots than automotive clients, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based A3 discovered.
General, non-automotive clients ordered 6,122 models within the first quarter, in comparison with 5,476 ordered by automotive-related clients. Measured by the variety of models ordered, that development was generated by: metals (up 40%), plastics and rubber (29%), semiconductors and electronics/photonics (23%), meals and shopper items (21%), life sciences/pharma/biomed (14%), all different industries (56%).
“As robots regularly turn out to be simpler to make use of and extra reasonably priced, we anticipate to see adoption proceed to rise in each trade, and at corporations of all sizes,” Jeff Burnstein, president of A3, mentioned in a launch. “There are lots of of 1000’s of corporations in North America who’ve but to put in even one robotic.”
Whereas that development was encouraging for all the robotics sector, one nation particularly is poised to capitalize on many of the pattern. A separate report on the growth of the collaborative robotic (cobot) sector forecasted that China will lead the Europe, Center East and Africa (EMEA) and Americas areas in shipments, leaping from a market share of 49.1% in 2021 to 54.4% in 2026.
Pushed by the logistics and repair industries, the cobot sector confirmed 45% development in 2021 as half of a post-pandemic rebound, and is predicted to proceed with development charges simply over 20% by 2026, based on the British consulting agency Work together Evaluation. As one slice of that image, the Americas are forecasted to put up a five-year compound annual development fee (CAGR) of 19.4%, which might rank it with the smallest market share in comparison with different areas.
Nonetheless, the longer term robotics market seems to be sturdy worldwide as many sectors search solutions to labor shortages, the Work together Evaluation report mentioned. A robust uptake in collaborative robotic utilization throughout the medical, training, logistics, and catering fields will seemingly drive that market to develop to a few occasions its 2021 dimension by 2026.
“As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, the difficulty of labor shortages is seemingly by no means ending,” Maya Xiao, senior analyst at Work together Evaluation, mentioned in a launch. “Our analysis reveals that when one competitor invests in collaborative robots, and it’s seen to work, there’s a ripple impact. In 2021, world cobot shipments achieved an outstanding year-on-year enhance of 44.6%. Collaborative robots are getting used as a type of ‘future-proofing’ as a result of the pandemic creates a lot uncertainty that corporations don’t know what to anticipate subsequent. Yearly, we predict a 20-30% development fee for the market, proper out to 2026.”
