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Is there an opportunity for manufacturing in 2022?
In addition to new energy vehicles, the manufacturing industry itself still has something to see. For example, today we are going to talk about industrial robots. As you read this, don't always think about transformers and your family's sweeping robots. Industrial robots look like this
In 2020, under the background of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the demand for unmanned and intelligent production in the fields of new energy vehicles and consumer electronics will continue to be released. In the first ten months, China's industrial robot output increased by more than 50% year-on-year. The potential increase in the market is worth looking forward to.
Image source: Intelligent Manufacturing Network
Capital is always profit-seeking, and the potential track has also attracted the attention of many investors. According to the author's incomplete statistics, in 2021, the investment amount on the track of industrial robots will exceed 100 billion yuan. Boshi shares (002698), Meklamand and other industry players have received hundreds of millions of yuan of financing.
Is this track really coming? Today I will take you to a good plate.
First, what is the driving force behind growth
Industrial robots are one of the most representative devices in intelligent manufacturing, and mainly serve the automotive industry in the early days. This industry is also the field with the widest application range and the best application maturity. In 2019, I had the privilege of visiting the BMW production line in Munich, Germany, and I was really shocked, and the number of workers seen in the entire production line was very few.
Photo: Automotive production line
In recent years, with the frequent emergence of intelligent manufacturing, industrial robots have begun to penetrate in all walks of life, metal processing, chemical industry, food manufacturing, have begun to appear its figure. Large robotic arms methodically produce one industrialized product after another. So, what is catalyzing the development of industrial robots?
For China, the first thing I want to say is the disappearance of the demographic dividend. This point does not need to be explained too much, and the aging society is gradually coming to us. The author checked it out, and the proportion of 15-64 years old has decreased year by year, almost 0.5% per year. At the same time, labor costs are also rising year by year, and the willingness of young people to work in the production workshop is really not strong. The above points are actually forcing the automation process to accelerate.
On the other hand, a little benchmarking can be found that as a manufacturing country, compared with developed countries, the density of industrial robots still has a relatively large room for improvement. Singapore has about five times as many industrial robots per 10,000 industrial workers as China.
As a world-famous factory in the world, industrial robots in China still have a lot of room for imagination.
Second, industrial robots, where are the core barriers
To study an industry well, the first thing to do is to open the black box (industrial chain) of the industry. Looking upstream, the core components include three major parts: controller, servo system and reducer, and the cost accounts for about 70%. The midstream is to assemble all kinds of parts, and the four major Kongs (Fanuc, ABB, KUKA, Yaskawa) firmly occupy nearly half of the market. The downstream application end is mainly concentrated in the automobile manufacturing and 3C electronics industry, and the high-growth photovoltaic and lithium battery industries are gradually penetrating.
Everything must be grasped big and small. Let's take a brief look at the three most important parts of industrial robot parts. To put it bluntly, it is also the hardest hit area by the "stuck neck". If China wants to change from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power, these three mountains must be crossed.
1. Controller: 80% of the market is monopolized by foreign countries. The controller is the brain of the industrial robot, responsible for controlling the movement of the entire robot, the core technology is concentrated in the software algorithm, generally the robot manufacturer independent research and development. The main gap between us and the international leading giants is the underlying algorithm, which determines a series of indicators such as robot accuracy and stability;
2. Reducer: 85% of the market is monopolized by foreign countries. Reducer is an important transmission device, RV reducer (rotary vector reducer) is the most widely used product, a multi-axis robot to average 4.5 RV reducer, Japan's Nabotsk is a well-deserved overlord, one person ate 70% of the cake;
3. Servo system: 70% of the market is monopolized by foreign countries. The servo mechanism is mainly responsible for executing the instructions issued by the controller. In fact, the servo system is widely used in the downstream industry, and the application of industrial robots accounts for about 10% of the overall application. Mitsubishi, Yaskawa and Panasonic firmly occupy the top three.
Third, what application scenarios, the most worth looking forward to
Having said all this, the development of an industry is ultimately inseparable from the downstream application demand growth.
Jumping out of the circle of robots in the industrial field, the author basically sorted out each downstream application end market and selected the industry that the author has the most noteworthy attention in mind - surgical robots.
Why? There are several main reasons:
1. Data reveals the truth. In 2020, the global surgical robot market size reached 8.3 billion US dollars, while China only accounted for 5% of the global market, but the number of patients in China is huge and the number of routine minimally invasive surgeries that may require surgical robots is large, and the future market space still exists. Among them, the market growth rate of endoscopic robots is particularly worthy of attention.
2. Policy support is essential. In recent years, the temple has also formulated many policies to encourage the development and innovation of medical devices such as surgical robots. And the key is that some parts of the country have begun to incorporate robot-assisted surgery into medical insurance. With the expansion of medical insurance coverage, the popularity of surgical robots is really a matter of time. 100% full reimbursement, isn't it fragrant?
3. Spring River Plumbing, Prophet of Capital. According to the statistics of the Arterial Orange Database, in June 2021, a total of 74 financing incidents occurred in the global medical device field, and the total amount of disclosed financing exceeded 15.9 billion yuan. Just last month, Meituan Wang Xing waved a big hand into the surgical robot track, and the investment in Connaught is a company that grabs the endoscopic surgical robot.
Of course, everything has to be dialectical, in medical surgery, absolutely have to be a little vague, if one day in the future, surgical robot surgery process medical accidents, will likely have a great negative impact on the company's brand reputation and product promotion. However, in general, as the leader of the robot, the surgical robot frees the hands of the doctor, which is the trend of the times.
Once a trend is formed, it is irreversible. This is true for you and me, and it is even more so for capital.
Note: This article does not constitute any investment advice. The stock market is risky, and you need to be cautious when entering the market. There is no harm in buying and selling.