Comparison of the Development Status of AGV/AMR Industry in China and Japan

Japan is known as the "kingdom" and is one of the countries that developed and applied mobile robots earlier. In the early days, when domestic mobile robots had not yet flourished, Japanese AGVs occupied a considerable market share in China. However, with the rise of domestic mobile robots in recent years, the Sino-Japanese AGV market has undergone great changes. More and more Chinese companies have begun to vigorously enter the Japanese market, while in China, it is difficult to see Japanese brand AGVs. The following article will compare the current development status of the Chinese and Japanese mobile robot industries from multiple aspects such as market size, technological development, and application characteristics.

Market size: more than 10 times the gap

AGV has been widely used in Japan since the 1980s. In 1981, the total output value of AGV in Japan was 6 billion yen, which rose to 20 billion yen in 1985, increasing at an average annual rate of 20%. In 1986, Japan had installed 2,312 AGVS and 5,032 AGVs. By 1990, Japan had about 10,000 AGVs. By 1988, there were 47 AGV manufacturers in Japan. With the continuous development, the application of AGV in Japan reached its peak in 2002 and 2003. According to the survey results of the Japanese AGV/AMR (transport robot) market released by Yano Research Institute, the market size of Japanese AGV/AMR (manufacturer shipments) was 7,055 units (down 6.7% year-on-year) and 16.15 billion yen (down 14.2% year-on-year) in fiscal 2020, and 6,400 units (down 9.3% year-on-year) and 15.87 billion yen (down 1.7% year-on-year) in fiscal 21, which was lower than the previous fiscal year for the second consecutive year.

Although there was a boost in FY2020 due to new product launches, etc., the overall market declined due to the spread of the coronavirus infection and the uncertain outlook for economic activities, and the temporary freezing of capital investment by user companies was very obvious. In FY21, product shipments were severely restricted due to shortages, and the long-term corona effect led to negative growth in the previous fiscal year. The market size (manufacturer shipments) of AGV/AMR in Japan is expected to be 7,700 units (a year-on-year increase of 20.3%) and sales of 19.87 billion yen (a year-on-year increase of 25.2%) in FY22. Although the impact of the semiconductor shortage continues, the efforts of manufacturers to improve and strengthen the supply system in the previous year are positive factors, and growth is expected for the first time in three years.

Japan AGV/AMR shipment changes and forecasts

Changes and forecasts of Japanese AGV/AMR sales scale

In the Chinese market, according to the data of the Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Alliance and the statistics of the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, in 2021, the overall sales and application of mobile robots (AGV/AMR) by Chinese market enterprises will reach 72,000 units, an increase of 75.61% over 2020, and the market sales will reach 12.6 billion yuan (2.5 billion yuan for overseas sales), a year-on-year increase of 64%. Among them, 36 companies have revenues exceeding 100 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50%. With the acceleration of my country's industrialization, the application of AGV/AMR robots has been rapidly improved. It has become a commonly used intelligent handling equipment in the manufacturing industry and has maturely penetrated into various types of manufacturing industries such as intelligent warehousing, automobiles, tobacco, medicine, food, chemicals, printing, 3C, etc. In the manufacturing industry, there is still huge development potential for AGV application space. In 2022, according to the data of the Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Alliance and the preliminary statistics of the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, the scale of China's mobile robot market is expected to grow by more than 40%.

2015-2021 China's market for industrial mobile robots (AGV/AMR) new volume (units) and growth rate

2015-2021 China's industrial mobile robot (AGV/AMR) market size (100 million yuan) and growth rate

In terms of market size, the gap between China and Japan is already very large. On the one hand, this is due to the rise of China's mobile robot industry in recent years, but the fundamental reason is that Japan has a small territory, limited market space, and lacks competitiveness in the international market. Therefore, it is difficult to make a major breakthrough in the scale of application.

Technology development: Focus on AGC and let a hundred flowers bloom

Japan first introduced AGV in 1963, and its first AGV factory was built in 1966 by a joint venture between a transportation equipment supplier and the American Webb Company. After 1976, Japan attached great importance to the development of AGV, adding dozens of AGV systems every year. On the basis of introducing foreign technology, Japan has made localized improvements to AGV, greatly simplifying its technical complexity and the complexity of the vehicle body, and developed AGC (Automated Guided Cart) products. The simple AGV technology represented by Japan, or it can only be called AGC (Automated Guided Cart), pursues simplicity and practicality, and strives to allow users to recover their investment costs in the shortest time. This type of product is completely combined with simple production applications (single path, fixed process). AGC is only used for transportation, and does not deliberately emphasize the automatic loading and unloading function of AGC. In terms of guidance, most of them only use simple magnetic tape guidance. Due to the developed basic industry in Japan, AGC manufacturers can configure almost simple functional devices for it, which reduces the cost of AGC to almost the limit.

Most Japanese companies follow the model of each doing their own job and completing turnkey projects at different levels. That is, AGV manufacturers take the development of new AGVs and mass production as their main goals, and their subsidiaries or engineering companies in the society provide AGV complete systems required by various industries and complete turnkey projects. Simple AGV technology is very popular in light industrial development areas, and Japanese manufacturers not only stay at the simplification of AGV, but also make AGC to the extreme. Japanese AGC companies modularize AGC and export AGC components to foreign countries, and open up the market by exporting modular components. One of the big markets is China. In the Chinese market, early applications were also mainly based on simple AGVs of this type in Japan, but around 2015, the rise of KIVA-like warehouse robots led to a wave of development of domestic companies for products such as AGVs, especially the rise of a group of emerging startups, which led to the popularity of the entire industry.

At present, the Chinese market has increasingly rich products with various navigation methods, from traditional magnetic AGV to QR code, laser navigation, visual navigation, etc. Forklift type, production line handling type (roller type, traction type, lurking type, assembly type), storage robot (sorting type), heavy-duty AGV, combined AGV, composite type, inspection type, parking type, etc. Various forms of products are constantly being introduced. In order to meet the needs of various sub-industries, Chinese AGV/AMR companies have also developed various industry-specific machines suitable for subdivided scenarios.

From the perspective of technological development, Japan has achieved the ultimate in simplification of AGV, which is worthy of recognition and learning. However, it is precisely the adherence to this technical route that has caused Japanese AGV to lose its competitiveness in the high-end market. The diversification of industries determines the diversification of needs. A single product type cannot meet the needs of all industries, especially under the flexible and intelligent development trend of manufacturing. The future application space of simple AGV products will be continuously compressed. Compared with the single technical route of Japan's AGV, the development of Chinese AGV technology presents the characteristics of flourishing. China's vast manufacturing industry provides rich application soil for the development of mobile robots, and various types of products are gradually maturing in application. The development of technology has laid the foundation for Chinese AGV companies to go overseas. At present, in the international market, the competitiveness of Chinese AGV brands is increasing day by day, and they have already come to the forefront of the world.

Looking at the development history of AGV in China and Japan, it can be found that the development of the mobile robot industry is closely related to the economic and ecological environment of the region. In order to better interpret the development status of the mobile robot industry in various regions around the world, in May 2023, the Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Alliance will jointly release the "2023 Global Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Development Report (English Version)" with the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute. The report will be distributed through the alliance's overseas platforms, so stay tuned!

Editor: Huang Fei