Summary

The collaborative robot industry is growing globally as companies look to lower manufacturing costs and increase the speed of product manufacturing. While the vendors targeting this space are varied, they can be roughly broken down into 4 categories;

• Pure Collaborative robot developers such as Universal Robots, Techman Robot, Doosan Robotics and Precise Automation.
• Industrial Robotics vendors like ABB, FANUC, Kuka AG and Yaskawa Motoman
• End-of-arm tooling companies like Schunk, Schmaltz, Robotiq, Onrobot, Soft Robotics and Ubiros
• Software providers for competencies like Machine vision (Veo Robotics, Micropsi) or Motion Control (Energid)

Of these four sub-groups, the first two are the critical providers of the collaborative robot arms and controllers. While the established industrial providers have developed some interesting systems, they have not kept up with the pure cobot developers in getting market share or developing ergonomic technology. The market leader, Universal Robots, has sold some 37,000 collaborative robots since its inception and has garnered well over 50% of the market. Competition is increasingly coming from other pure cobot developers in East Asia, like Doosan and Techman, and in America through vendors like Precise Automation.

For this research, it is assumed that manufacturing trends continue according to historical industry norms without a major worldwide manufacturing disruption. This market data examines the global collaborative robotics market.

The overall market size was derived from both top-down and bottom-up approaches. The top-down view was derived from industrial Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—both global and from companies—and industrial automation equipment by vertical market. On the other hand, the bottom-up approach was based on robotics platform revenue from the major industrial, collaborative, and commercial robotics companies worldwide.

The market data is the product of a quantitative assessment of the collaborative robotics market, which was informed by, and further refined by, a qualitative analysis of the technological, business, and political drivers and constraints impacting the sector. The quantitative component was developed using a number of public and private sources. These include financial statements, earnings reports, corporate briefings, government/academic funding announcements, and association and industry publications, along with sessions at conferences and seminars and during private interviews with industry representatives, end users, and others involved with the industry value chain.

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