Industrial robot production accelerating in China

Industrial robotics is established as a growth industry by now. This is being helped along by an aggressive push in China to develop the sector and the results are starting to show. Forward Business and Intelligence said demand for industrial robots is rapidly rising in China, which turned out 72,400 last year, DigiTimes reports. Production was up by nearly 35 percent in the first four months of 2017, which saw a rollout of 35,073 such robots.

The results are not that surprising. China is already the world's largest market for industrial robots. By 2016, a third of this was located in China. A forecast from the International Federation of Robotics shows 40 percent of industrial robot sales could be from China by 2019. Part of the reason for this is rising wages in China. As the price of labor increases, there is inevitably more investment in capital. In 2017, that means robots.

The market is changing, though. Robots are getting smarter and more collaborative. Recode reports that industrial robots are getting smaller and more perceptive. Collaborative robots represented 3 percent of the market in 2016, but that is expected to grow to 34 percent by 2025. By then, the value of the market may expand from $12 billion to $34 billion. These robots will have more sensors that help them react faster to get more done, and are even cheaper than traditional ones. At least price competition is something China understands well.