my country's industrial robot density officially surpasses that of the United States!

Not long ago, Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the density of industrial robots in China's manufacturing industry has reached 322 per 10,000 workers, which is about 13 times that of ten years ago.

This means that China's industrial robot density has surpassed that of the United States for the first time, ranking fifth in the world, followed by South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Germany and China. This is mainly because China has been applying industrial robots on a large scale in recent years. In 2021, 268,000 new industrial robots were installed, which is approximately equal to the total of other regions in the world.

Data from the International Federation of Robotics shows that the density of industrial robots in the global manufacturing industry has risen to 141 units per 10,000 people, more than double that of six years ago. It is obvious that the growth rate of industrial robot applications in my country is far above the average.

Looking specifically at other countries, South Korea has reached a historical high of 1,000 industrial robots per 10,000 people, more than three times that of China, making it the undisputed number one, mainly due to its globally recognized advantages in the electronics and automotive industries.

Singapore ranks second, with 670 industrial robots per 10,000 people. It is worth noting that since 2016, its industrial robot density has increased by an average of 24% per year, making it the fastest growing country except China.

Japan ranks third with 399 industrial robots per 10,000 people, a significant gap from the first and second places; Germany ranks fourth with 397 units, making it the largest robot market in Europe.

The density of industrial robots in the United States is only 274 units, but this also means that there is still a lot of room for growth. In particular, the labor shortage problem caused by the epidemic is becoming more and more serious, and the pace of automation transformation is currently accelerating.

Industrial robots can effectively improve the production efficiency of enterprises, reduce their operating costs and production risks, fill the gap of labor shortage, and improve the degree of standardization in the industry. At the same time, with the maturity of core technologies such as high-end chips and operating systems, the production capacity and reliability of industrial robots have been greatly improved, promoting the continuous application of industrial robots in countless scenarios in thousands of industries.

The reason why enterprises introduce industrial robots is to complete the automation transformation to improve production efficiency and control production costs. Recently, iMedia Research conducted a survey on the role of industrial robots in reducing costs and increasing efficiency:

In terms of improving efficiency, most enterprises have improved their production efficiency after applying industrial robots, and 31.7% of them have been able to improve their efficiency by more than 50%. Among them, the efficiency improvement in the mining and pharmaceutical industries is relatively large, followed by the rubber and plastics and metal products industries, while the efficiency improvement in the furniture manufacturing and paper printing industries is mostly below 50%.

In terms of cost reduction, after applying industrial robots, about 80% of enterprises can reduce production costs, only 7% will increase, and the rest will have basically no impact. Among them, about 53% of enterprises have a cost reduction of less than 50%, and only a small number of enterprises can reduce costs by more than 50%. The cost reduction in mining and furniture manufacturing industries is relatively large, followed by the pharmaceutical and food manufacturing industries.

According to iMedia Consulting data, the scale of China's industrial robot market is expected to reach 82.1 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 27.3%, and the growth rate is still rapid.

At present, my country's aging trend continues to intensify, and the problems of reduced labor force and increasing labor costs in the manufacturing industry are becoming more and more prominent. Data show that the number of people employed in China's manufacturing industry in 2021 was 147 million, a decrease of 22 million from 2012. During the same period, the number of people employed in the service industry increased by 32% to 365 million.

Therefore, replacing people with machines has become the choice of many companies. Some experts say that China can no longer rely on the continuously expanding labor force to drive economic growth. Automation is the most reliable way to improve the productivity of existing workers.

In addition, China's industrial structure is undergoing accelerated transformation, and the proportion of high-value-added high-end manufacturing is increasing, which is also requiring the accelerated application of robotic automation. The requirements of high-end manufacturing in terms of precision, stability, etc. are exactly what robots are good at.

The "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Robot Industry" points out that by 2025, the density of robots in my country's manufacturing industry will double, which means that the robot density will reach about 500 units per 10,000 people. Currently, there are just over one million industrial robots in operation in my country. Considering the density and application expansion, it is estimated that the new market demand in the next three years will be around one million units, and there is still huge room for growth.