The IFR Statistical Department (International Federation of Robotics) still believes that the year 2013 is about to be a great year for robot sales. According to their study, the worldwide robot demand will continue to increase from 2013 to 2016 for multiple reasons.
First of all, the very good year of 2012 and the first quarter of this year were already discussed in their last newsletter and explained in this blog post: Robot Sales: First Quarter in North America.
The study on the year 2013 is still very promising for the industrial robot market. The global robot sales is most likely to increase by about 2% to reach 162,000 robots by the end of the year. This increasing demand will however vary according to country and industry.
However, some countries will experience a decrease in their robot sales.
Japan will be one of them, since a weak economic situation is forecasted for their electrical and electronics industries.
After significant investment in robotics for their automotive industry over the past 3 years, Germany and the United Kingdom are also predicted to have fewer robot installations in 2013.
The tight economic situation in Italy, France and Spain is slated to produce a decrease or a stagnation in their robot installations.
The automotive industry automation is expected to experience a slowdown due to the last three years of continued increasing robot installation.
Retooling for new production processes and production automation is likely to cause an increase of robot installations in the electrical/electronics industry.
Increased robot orders are also predicted to occur in the pharmaceutical, food and beverage, metal and machinery industries.
Further forecasts even state that 2014 to 2016 will still be great years for robot installations. The growth is scheduled to continue at about 6% on average per year. This growth is based on many factors like the penetration of other industrial markets, such as electronics and food. New technologies and systems will also open robotics to new applications such as; human-robot collaborations and applications were no robots are currently used.
The main factors for this increase in robot installations are:
In conclusion, this study announces great news for the robot industry. A lot of factors are responsible for this growth such as: the economic situation of countries, the evolution of the technology and the adaptation to production changes. Robotiq is interested in two of these: the need for flexible automation and collaborative robotics. Our products are becoming the reference for flexible robotic gripping solutions and the ideal partner for collaborative robots. In order to demonstrate this to you, don’t hesitate to take a look at our ebook on robotic end effectors.