According to statistics, in 2012, China's labor costs rose by about 60% compared with the 2009 international financial crisis, and more young people want to work for IT companies. For manufacturing companies, the problem of employment has become increasingly difficult, and objectively, China’s demand for industrial robots has been expanding.
China will become the world's largest industrial robot market
According to statistics from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), in 2012, the number of industrial robots purchased in the Chinese market was 22,987 units, an increase of about 50% over 2010.
Experts believe that the trend of handing over the manual work to robots in the future will continue to expand. It is expected to reach 28,000 units in 2014, which is in line with Japan, a highly automated manufacturing country. It is expected to reach 34,000 units in 2015, and China is expected to become the world's largest industrial robot market by then.
The main purpose of Chinese industrial enterprises to introduce industrial robots is to reduce costs, mainly for welding and painting work in automobile factories. In the future, compared with manual labor, robots can guarantee the stability of quality, and will receive more attention. It is very likely that electronic robots will gradually introduce industrial robots.
Japanese industrial robot companies have begun production layout in China
In the case of rising labor costs, investment in industrial robots introduced by some manufacturing plants in China to reduce labor is increasing year by year. At present, industrial robots in the Chinese market are mainly from European companies. The Swiss ABB Group not only has a production base in China, but also established a research and development base to build an integrated platform for design, production and sales that responds to local market demands in a timely manner; KUKA Roboter is also strengthening its China business.
Electronics, automobiles, and industrial robots are the three pillars of Japanese industry. In the downturn of the electronics industry and the downturn in the automotive industry, industrial robots are the third pillar industry in Japan. Japan is not willing to lag behind European companies and has begun to lay out production in China. Japanese companies hope to exploit the Japanese industrial robot technology to open up the Chinese industrial robot market.
Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries will invest nearly 10 billion yen in China to build a production plant for industrial robots. Kawasaki Heavy Industries is located in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, with a total construction area of 10,000 square meters. It mainly produces robots for automobile welding and parts handling. The project is scheduled to start production in April 2015, with an initial annual production capacity of around 2,000 units, mainly for local car manufacturers in China. Production capacity is expected to increase to around 10,000 units in 2017.