The Predicament of Industrial Robots in China

Being large but not strong is a true reflection of China's manufacturing industry in many fields, but in the field of robotics, China is in a state of "not very big, not strong."

As early as 2013, China had become the world's largest industrial robot market. In 2014, sales of 57,000 units increased by 56% compared to the same period last year, accounting for a quarter of global sales, which increased by 55% compared to the same period last year, reaching 190,000 units.

However, against the backdrop of increasing sales of industrial robots in our country, there has been a hidden concern for many years that the market share of domestic brand industrial robots is very low. In 2014, sales of domestic brand industrial robots were 17,000 units, accounting for 7.45% of the total global sales of industrial robots; in 2015, sales of domestic brand industrial robots were 22,000 units, with a domestic market share of less than 20%, and the global market share of industrial robots still remained in double digits. Industrial machinery companies in our country not only have a low market share but also face the problem of being small and scattered. At the beginning of 2016, there were more than 1,000 industrial robot companies in the country, including over 100 listed companies, but most of them were small-scale, with more than 90% of companies having an annual output value of robots below 100 million yuan, and many manufacturers selling more than 1,000 units annually (only generating preliminary scale effects). Even for leading domestic companies like Shenyang Xiyason Robotics, the operating income in 2015 was only 1.69 billion yuan. Compared to ABB, KUKA, FANUC, and Yaskawa Electric of Japan, the income gap is significant.

Worse still, many so-called robot companies in China are not genuinely engaged in the industry, rather than doubting arbitrage strategies and the stock market.

In addition, domestic industrial robots are more focused on the low-end.

In the application joints—relatively complex markets, foreign-funded enterprises occupy more than 90% of the domestic market share; the market for high-end industrial robots with six axes or more used in automotive manufacturing, welding, and other high-end industrial fields is mainly dominated by Japanese, European, and American companies, with domestic six-axis industrial robots accounting for less than 10% of new installations.

Domestic robot varieties mainly focus on low-end robot application fields such as electrical and basic manufacturing processing and stacking, with low added value. In 2015, although the demand for robots in our country and the sales of domestic enterprises increased by two robots, a considerable number of robot companies were operating at a loss. Therefore, domestic brands are at a disadvantage in market share, and robot technology is at a disadvantage in the overall machine.

The wizard industry is neither large nor strong.

However, in some areas, our country's robot system design and integration capabilities are quite good. For example, the robot soccer team from the University of Science and Technology of China won the championship at the Robot World Cup, and domestic companies can also develop some high-end industrial and medical robots. In terms of military robots, China's military and civilian sectors are completely separate in terms of research and development, production, and sales, and the military is not restricted by patents, so China's military robots are smaller locally than those of the United States.

Others' core technology.

The key technologies and key components of domestic robots lag behind those of the West. Core technologies such as human-robot interaction technology, control technology, environmental perception and remote sensing technology, material technology, and artificial intelligence, as well as key components like precision reducers, high-performance controllers, and servo motor drivers, are heavily reliant on imports.

Taking the reducer, which has the highest cost share in robot hardware, as an example. Precision reducers can be divided into harmonic gear reducers, cycloidal pinwheel planetary reducers, RV reducers, precision planetary reducers, and filtering reducers, etc., which are core components of industrial robots, accounting for about 35% of the production cost of robot equipment.

Currently, more than half of the global precision gear reducer market is owned by Japanese companies. Harmonic is a leader in the field of harmonic gear reducers, holding about 15% of the global market share. Japan's Nabtesco is the largest manufacturer of RV reducers and cycloidal pinwheel reducers in the world, with a global market share of about 60% in the RV reducer field.

The focus of domestic research after localization is on precision reducers, with the emergence of the National Key Laboratory of Vibration at Nantong Kang Zhejiang Hengfeng.

Mechanical transmission, Chongqing University, Tianjin reducer, Qin Chuan Machine Tool Factory, Beijing or He Mei for Beijing harmonic transmission, Suzhou green units or enterprises can partially replace foreign products in the high-precision field with cycloidal pinwheel reducers and harmonic reducers. However, in 2015, 75% of precision reducers were still imported from Japan.

Controllers are equivalent to the brain of robots, used to issue and transmit commands, including hardware and software:

Hardware is part of the industrial control board, including some main control units such as signal processing circuits. Although many domestic brands have mastered the relevant technology for controllers, the development of industrial robot controllers is based on CPU, DSP, and FPGA, but the CPU mainly uses ARM, and many DSPs and FPGAs are sourced from Texas Instruments and Spirit in the United States. Although there are already some.

Robot controllers are based on Loongson, but several suppliers are involved in procurement. The main control algorithms and secondary development in the software part have solved this problem, but there are domestic brands, yet there are gaps in stability, response speed, and ease of use.

In addition, servo motors and Japanese companies account for about 40% of the global market share, while German brands like Siemens, Bosch, and Schneider account for about 30% of the global market share. Domestic companies like Yingwo Technology, Aiviten, Huazhong CNC, and New Party together account for less than 10% of the market share. 80% of the drivers in the country are imported from Europe, America, and Japan.

The heavy reliance on imports for key components leads domestic companies and foreign automotive manufacturers to purchase gear reducers at nearly three times the price and servo motors at nearly double the price. Since the costs of reducers, servo motors, and controllers are 35%, 25%, and 15% respectively, the production costs of robots for Chinese companies are high.

Industrial robot manufacturing companies are located abroad. In contrast, many of them are core component suppliers themselves—Japan's FANUC CNC system is the largest specialized production company in the world, and Japan's Yaskawa Electric and Panasonic are among the largest automotive manufacturers globally, which gives robot manufacturers abroad a natural cost advantage.

In addition, foreign robot manufacturers can also obtain procurement price discounts through exclusive agreements with large-volume buyers. Together, this makes it difficult for Chinese companies' robots to compete with foreign companies.