The development center of AGV/AMR must be in China.
Wen | Ye Jiaqi
Since the first domestic AGV was officially applied in 1991, in more than 30 years, China's AGV/AMR industry has basically achieved all-round catch-up. Whether it is product technology or landing application, Chinese enterprises are already at the forefront. In the future, whether from the perspective of policy environment, market demand or technology application, the development center of the entire industry must be in the Chinese market.
National policy: mobile robots are one of the key directions
In 2014, the State Council issued the "Medium- and Long-term Plan for the Development of the Logistics Industry (2014-2020)", proposing to take the logistics industry as a basic and strategic industry to support the development of the national economy. In recent years, the mainland has successively issued a series of documents such as the "Opinions on Further Promoting Logistics Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement to Promote the Development of the Real Economy" and the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan" to actively promote the intelligent upgrading of the logistics industry.
In December 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and other 15 departments jointly issued the "14th Five-Year" Robot Industry Development Plan. The "Planning" proposes that by 2025, China will become the source of global robot technology innovation, high-end manufacturing agglomeration and a new highland for integrated applications, with an average annual growth rate of more than 20% in the operating income of the robot industry and a doubling of the density of manufacturing robots.
In recent years, the overall scale of the domestic robot industry has grown rapidly, and the operating income in 2020 exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time. The development of the robot industry in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period will be guided by high-end and intelligent development, facing the needs of industrial transformation and consumption upgrading, adhering to the principle of "innovation-driven, application traction, basic improvement, and integrated development", improving the stability and competitiveness of the industrial chain supply chain, and promoting the high-quality development of the robot industry.
For the development direction of key support, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, we will focus on promoting the innovation and application of key products of industrial robots, service robots and special robots, and promote the high-end and intelligent development of products.
In terms of industrial robots, we will focus on the development of high-precision and high-reliability welding robots for the fields of automobiles, aerospace, rail transit, etc., vacuum (clean) robots such as automatic handling, intelligent movement and storage for the semiconductor industry, civil explosives production robots with explosion-proof functions, logistics robots such as AGV, unmanned forklifts, sorting, packaging, etc., and collaborative robots for large loads, light, flexible, double arms, and mobile in the field of 3C, auto parts, etc., which can be moved anywhere in the working area. Mobile operating robots with reachable attitude and flexible operation capabilities.
Chart: The part of the 14th Five-Year Plan for mobile robots
"Planning" is the relevant departments in the full investigation of the current domestic robot market results, it can be seen that logistics robots have been placed in a very important position, which will further promote the development of China's mobile robot industry.
Market Space: China is the world's largest AGV/AMR market
From 2016 to 2020, the average annual compound growth rate of China's robot industry is about 15%, of which the output of industrial robots has increased from 72,000 sets to 212,000 sets, an average annual growth rate of 31%, and has become the world's largest consumer of industrial robots for eight consecutive years. According to the data of China Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Alliance and the statistics of the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, from 2016 to 2021, the compound annual growth rate of the industrial application mobile robot (AGV/AMR) industry in the Chinese market is about 46%, especially under the large-scale impact of the global new crown epidemic in 2021, with a year-on-year increase of up to 64%, far exceeding the growth rate of most industries.
In 2020, the density of manufacturing robots in China reached 246 units per 10,000 people, nearly twice the global average. At the same time, the mainland robot industry has basically formed a whole industrial chain system from parts to complete machines to integrated applications, and robots have played an important role in the process of epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work and production.
In the field of mobile robots, according to the "2021-2022 China Industrial Application Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Development Research Report" released by the CMR Industry Alliance and the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, the overall sales of industrial application mobile robots (AGV/AMR) in the Chinese market in 2021 were 72,000 units, an increase of 75.61% over 2020, and the market sales reached 12.6 billion yuan (overseas sales of 2.5 billion yuan), an increase of 64% year-on-year.
In addition, according to relevant data, the main sales areas of global industrial mobile robots include Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region, and the main sales countries include China, the United States, Germany, Japan and other places. Among them, the Asia-Pacific region is undoubtedly the most important region for global sales and applications, while China continues to maintain the world's largest market.
Chart: 2015-2021 China Market Enterprise Industrial Application Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) New Increment (Unit) and Growth Rate
Chart: 2015-2021 China Industrial Application Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Market Size (100 Million Yuan) and Growth Rate
Technology application: China's AGV/AMR enterprises have obvious advantages
According to the statistics of the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, at present, there are more than 600 enterprises related to the AGV/AMR robot industry chain in China, of which about 220 are mainly engaged in the ontology of industrial application mobile robots (AGV/AMR).
The entry of many enterprises has promoted the rapid iteration of China's industrial mobile robot technology and the continuous expansion of application fields. Throughout the world, China has a very vast mobile robot application scenario, can cultivate more robot technology and products, at present, as far as the global view of China's mobile robot technology and engineering applications have been leading.
In terms of products, the traditional magnetic conductivity AGV to two-dimensional code, laser navigation, visual navigation and other navigation methods are becoming more and more abundant. Fork models, production line handling type (roller type, traction type, latent type, assembly type), storage robot (sorting type), heavy-duty AGV, assembly AGV, composite type, inspection class, parking class and other forms of products continue to innovate.
In terms of market applications, from the traditional automotive, tobacco and other industries, to 3C electronics, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, new energy photovoltaics, etc., Chinese mobile robot manufacturers are constantly opening up more market segments.
As the domestic market continues to advance, China's mobile robot manufacturers have also begun to vigorously enter foreign markets. According to the "2021-2022 China Industrial Application Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Development Research Report" data shows that in 2021, the share of industrial mobile robots of Chinese enterprises in foreign sales will reach 20%, compared with 10.50% last year. According to the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, many domestic ontology companies, such as Jizhijia, Siasong, Future Robot, Fast Warehouse, etc., are increasing the development of overseas markets. Due to the labor cost advantage and the huge consumption of China itself, it is expected that the mobile robots made in China will have a cost-effective advantage of 30%-40%, and the international competitive advantage is obvious.
Chart: The share of industrial mobile robots in overseas markets of Chinese enterprises in 2021
At present, in addition to some core components in the upstream of the AGV/AMR industry chain, there is still some gap with foreign brands, from all aspects, China's mobile robots have all kinds of conditions for rapid development, and more and more core devices, software and systems are also accelerating localization, after making up for the "short board" of China's AGV/AMR, the right to speak in the international market will be further enhanced.