In-depth interpretation of domestic robot industry investment opportunities and risk points

The Chinese market is the world's largest robotic market in the future, and has grown rapidly in recent years. International robot giants have to occupy the Chinese market, to ABB, Kuka, Yaskawa motor, hair that the four families represented by the foreign robot enterprises occupy more than 90% of the market share of China's robot market, through the domestic robot market space, industrial chain, domestic and foreign competition, domestic robot enterprises competitive trend analysis, Identify the following investment opportunities and risk points for the robotics industry.

China robot Market

(a) The rapid growth of China's industrial robot market

China has become an important market for industrial robots in the world. 2011 China robot shipments reached 23,000 units, accounting for 13.8% of global shipments, the world ranked fourth, year-on-year growth of 51%. 2004-2012 China Industrial robot composite growth rate of 29.7%, 2009-2012 composite growth reached 71.9%.

2012 domestic robot installed capacity reached nearly 27,000 units, compared to the previous year's growth of 19.5%, higher than the International Robot Association forecast. According to the International Robotics Association's forecasts and exchanges with relevant domestic industry insiders, 2013 growth is expected to reach 20%-30%.

2012 Domestic industrial robot stock has exceeded 100,000 units, after Japan, the United States, Germany and Korea, accounting for 8% of the world stock.

At present, relative to the United States, Japan, Korea and other countries, the domestic robot density is still very low, 2011 data for only 21 units per million, less than the world average of 55 units per million. Even if the factor is eliminated, there is a large space for the domestic robot density, which shows that the market potential of Chinese industrial robots is huge.

In recent years, in the Chinese market, in addition to the increasing installed capacity, the robot application industry has been expanding.

The automotive industry is still the largest robot application field in China, accounted for 41%, with six-axis general-purpose robots, consumer electronics, Electronics/electrical industries, and semiconductors (i.e. 3C industries) are labor-intensive industries, with large numbers of scara and low load articulated robots (such as desktop robots) totaling 21% The metal products industry is also based on six-axis general-purpose robots, accounting for more than 17%. The food/beverage/Personal Care industry is also a relatively large area, in recent years more use of parallel robots to quickly load and unload cargo.

From all areas of growth, 3C industry, the highest growth in the consumer electronics industry composite growth rate of 20.2%, automotive as the most traditional consumption of the field in the next few years the lowest growth.

(b) Three major factors to promote Chinese robot demand

1. Rising labour costs

Factor one: Labor costs rise and demographic dividend fades away. The increase of labor cost stimulates the enterprise robot to replace artificial demand.

2. Declining labour supply

Factor two: The supply of labor has fallen. In the middle of the 90, the number of manufacturing industry in China declined sharply. 98-99 years have experienced the laid-off crisis of state-owned enterprises, textile and other traditional manufacturing industry. After joining the WTO in 2001, the number of manufacturing industry in China began to recover slowly. However, in the second year of the new century, the labour force of the first and third years has become the mainstream, they are no longer willing to engage in a large number of monotonous repetitive environmental work. Yangtze River delta, Pearl River Delta and other low end industry labor shortage obvious.

3. Policy support

Factor Three: The upgrading of manufacturing industry, national policy support. Popularization of robots is not only a simple substitution of artificial, but also an important means to enhance the efficiency and flexibility of manufacturing industry.

(iii) Foreign robot manufacturers to occupy the Chinese market

The Chinese market is the world's largest robotic market in the future, and has grown rapidly in recent years. International robot giants have taken to the Chinese market, to ABB, Kuka, Yaskawa Motors, the four major families of the foreign robot enterprises to occupy the Chinese robot market more than 90% of the market share.

In 90% of the market share of the robot, ABB, hair, Yaskawa electromechanical, Kuka four families accounted for 57.5%. After the three major manufacturers of OTC, Panasonic and Kawasaki heavy industry accounted for 16%. But the domestic robot production enterprise market share is relatively small, 2012 local brand robot market share 8%, the individual enterprise generally has the small scale, the innovation ability is weak and so on.

This competition pattern and the domestic robot most uses in the automobile profession related, the foreign robot manufacturer usually and the big automobile enterprise binds. For example, Volkswagen uses only Kuka, often a new factory to buy 1000-2000 machine people, GM mainly use hair that division, the European car brand also consider ABB more. Domestic auto companies also have preferences, such as the Great Wall with Yaskawa Motoman, Jianghuai automobile with ABB. Domestic robot enterprises in the automotive industry is not competitive in foreign products, foreign robot companies in the automotive industry advantage is because foreign also retained the auto manufacturing industry, other manufacturing capacity has shifted to China.

Robot body is the best European products, to kuka the most top-level, ABB robot localization, the quality has declined. Japan's Yaskawa, hair that branch, that wisdom is the more, Panasonic, and other products in Europe and the United States, belong to high quality and low price, more in line with the needs of Chinese customers. Korean modern robot, mainly used in modern group of modern heavy industry and modern cars, export relatively few.

Anchuan and other Japanese robot companies attach great importance to the Chinese market. Take Yaskawa as an example, the first and Shougang cooperative robot body, and recently with the Hangzhou Kaida cooperation robot body. And in recent years Yaskawa in the domestic market layout is very good, almost every important market has offices. If there is no future domestic enterprises can do a good job, the domestic robot market is estimated mainly Japanese enterprises occupy a large share.

Robot four families have attached great importance to the Chinese market, have invested in China to build factories, but the real meaning of research and development and production of the localization of the only ABB, other such as Kuka, hair that branch, and so there is no real sense of localization. Foreign robot enterprises in the market to seize the same time, for the domestic robot industry to cultivate talent, as well as a better supplier system.

(iv) Domestic robotics industry Status quo

1. Domestic robot industry chain four links

The robot industry chain includes the core parts production, the robot body manufacture, the system integration as well as the industry application four links.

At present, our country robot enterprise really can make money business is system integration. No real localization of key components, resulting in the cost of domestic robot is far higher than foreign counterparts, it is difficult to scale.

2. Domestic robots cost more than foreign

Domestic robot body cost is much higher than similar products abroad, especially reducer, domestic enterprises to buy the speed reducer is the price of foreign enterprises nearly 5 times times. Servo motors, controllers and other key components of the price is also significantly higher than similar products abroad.

3. The current domestic robot industry is similar to the U.S. 50-60-year

At this stage of the domestic robot industry similar to the United States in the last century 50-60 years, the robot industry has just arisen, many enterprises into the robotics industry. The difference is that the United States at that time Robotics is the world's leading, now the Chinese robot technology is significantly behind the western already relatively mature technical level.

4. The planning situation of Robot industrial park all over the country

China's robot industry parks everywhere, local governments use government subsidies and tax incentives to generate local robot industry. On the one hand, that the domestic robot industry is indeed very hot, we are very optimistic about the industry prospects, on the other hand, there may soon be the industry overcapacity situation, not conducive to the healthy development of the industry.

Second, the development direction of domestic robot industry

(a) The future development path of domestic robot ontology

At this stage, domestic robot manufacturers in high-end areas can not directly compete with foreign enterprises, the success of domestic robots is to open up the upstream and downstream industry chain, the production of economic robot body, especially to break the key components such as reducer.

1. The successful path of domestic robot ontology--get through the upstream and downstream industry chain

The "successful five elements" of domestic robot Ontology: The National robot ontology should develop well, in the "Servo system", "Controller", "Core algorithm", "precision reducer", as well as "application and integration technology" of the five major areas of at least 2-3 are good at.

These five core technologies are called the "successful Five elements" of the robot ontology. Domestic robot body to develop a good, in these five major areas of at least 2-3 are good at. First, the servo system and the controller of these two pieces to be thoroughly digested, and then in the core algorithm needs to do better. High-precision mechanical transmission (that is, reducer) can be used for outsourcing. Application and integration can be implemented by the enterprise itself, or it can be done by the integrator.

2. To open up the upstream and downstream industry chain-"core components"

(1) The status of domestic robot core parts

At this stage although the core components of domestic enterprises developed, but the technology and foreign gaps, but also need to break through, especially the reducer.

Servo motor European and American brands the highest end, the quality of Japanese enterprises is also very good, the overall foreign suppliers can choose more, bargaining power is relatively weak. The most advanced servo motor in China is the Eston, the wide number and the Chuan technology.

The controller is the domestic enterprise is quite good, at present the domestic doing better enterprise has the solid high, the public is Hing, Eston, the wide number and so on enterprise, also has hit, the Beihang Institute and so on research institutes.

Foreign robot enterprises and Narbonne, harmonic two major reducer enterprises, have long-term strategic partnership, and they need a large amount of procurement, can be a lower cost of procurement reducer. Domestic enterprises are weak bargaining power, procurement costs are usually 3-5 times more expensive than abroad. Among the three key parts, the reducer has the biggest profit space, so realizing the localization of the reducer is the key to reduce the cost and realize the growth of the domestic robot sales volume.

Need to focus on PCC and Keba, because these two companies can not only provide servo systems and controllers, but also provide a complete set of robot system solutions, many of the domestic robot enterprises have just started to rely on PCC and Keba.

(2) In all key parts, reducer localization is the most important.

Global reducer market capacity estimated more than 10 billion, RV reducer and harmonic reducer according to the number, the two are 6:4,RV reducer mainly used for more than 20 kg of robot joints, harmonics used in 20 kg robot joints, RV reducer Due to the composition of more complex parts, bearing strength, more difficult than harmonic reducer large , and RV reducer production line investment scale is much larger than the harmonic reducer. The worldwide RV reducer Enterprise mainly includes Nabotsk, Spinea and Sumitomo, mainly to Nabotsk;

Domestic is the development of reducer, or the intention to develop a number of reducer enterprises, RV reducer Enterprises, including Nantong Zhen Kang, Qinchuan development, Shandong Shuaike, such as harmonic reducer enterprises, including Jiangsu Green and Zjy beauty. At present, the harmonic reducer may be relatively fast to achieve domestic, RV reducer to achieve domestic may still need some time. If the harmonic reducer can break through quickly, can cooperate with the domestic robot enterprise, meet the domestic 3C and other industries to 20 kg below the small general six-axis robot demand, and promote the process of localization of robot ontology.

Considering the domestic technological level and the lack of experience in the enterprise, it is estimated that the future speed reducer will be realized domestically, and the service life and precision still have a certain gap with the world-class products.

(3) There are two ways for domestic robot enterprises to break through key parts.

Thinking one: Take the key parts of the independent research and Development route, domestic Nanjing Eston, Guangzhou CNC and other enterprises in the machine tool CNC system and servo system experience, independent research and development of robotic controller and servo system.

Thought two: Take the depth cooperation route, namely through the robot industry upstream and downstream. Evter and other enterprises, joint upstream key parts and components manufacturers, such as solid high, nantong vibration Kang, such as common breakthrough reducer and other key components.

3. To open up the upstream and downstream industry chain-"robot body"

Similar to foreign countries, many robot manufacturers originated in the upstream and downstream related industries, and mostly in the past 5 years into the robot industry. In addition, unlike foreign countries, Siasun robot and Bo Real shares originated in the transformation of scientific research institutes, is our country into the robot industry earlier enterprises.

(1) The domestic and foreign robot enterprise attention point is different

Chinese and foreign robot enterprises focus on different: foreign companies pay more attention to the development of cutting-edge technology, domestic enterprises focus on the core parts of the breakthrough and in the low-end production industry to seek a breakthrough in scale.

Foreign robots in the domestic market has also occupied a solid position, but because the requirements of the robot at home and abroad are not the same, domestic robot enterprises also have the opportunity. Foreign demand robot can operate for 10-15 years, but the cost is very high, domestic customers may focus on the requirements in two years can be cost recovery. Therefore, China's robot market may be the demand for life is not high, but the cost recovery period is high. The shorter the payback period, the better.

(2) Economic ontology is the main development direction

At home and abroad, the focus of the robot industry is different, economic ontology is the current development direction of domestic robot ontology, including Low-cost six-axis general-purpose robot and three or four-axis dedicated robot. In a broad sense, the automation equipment that can be programmed freely is the robot, can realize the artificial substitution very well.

As the foreign robot industry is accompanied by the growth of the automotive industry, and the automotive industry on the accuracy of the robot, efficiency and stability requirements are very high. In the automotive sector, domestic enterprises can not compete with foreign enterprises in the short term. Therefore, domestic enterprises should focus on the development and application of the automotive industry in general manufacturing economy of the robot.

The so-called economic ontology is divided into two categories: one is the domestic core components can break through, domestic robot enterprises can bulk production cost reduction of the general six-axis joint robot; the other is a special robot applied in a certain field. For example, the Scara robot and desktop robot used in the electronic industry belong to the special plane of economy ontology. In addition, the truss robot is also a special plane for machine tools. This kind of specialized robot usually three or four axes, foreign commonly called manipulator.

Special robots, such as truss robots and desktop robots, can usually avoid the defects of joint parts and components by foreign enterprises. For example, the truss robot joint is parallel, each joint error will not accumulate, unlike the six-axis general-purpose robot joint is in series, the accuracy of each joint is very high, each joint error will accumulate, will lead to a large terminal operation error. Therefore, the plane can adopt lower precision transmission device.

(3) Programmable automation equipment

In a broad sense, the automation equipment that can be programmed freely is the robot, can realize the artificial substitution very well. Take AGV as an example, a common standard AGV can reach three porters and one driver plus a transport vehicle, artificial substitution effect is obvious. From 2010 onwards, the domestic AGV market demand has multiplied, is expected to 2014 domestic AGV demand will reach 50,000 units, is 2010 10 times times, the total installed capacity will reach 250,000 units, become the global AGV the largest consumer country. At present, the most used AGV is the automobile industry, followed by the 3C industry.

Siasun robot advantages not only in the system integration is relatively strong, and in the trial of various types of automation equipment, Siasun AGV has been a fist products, the future can be other specialized robots and programmable automation equipment development, such as vacuum cleaning manipulator, as well as automatic stacking equipment.

4. Watch the robot enterprise that can develop the ontology

Because robot ontology is the automation technology synthesizer, in the robot industry chain is the most bargaining power, can effectively integrate upstream components and downstream system integrators, so long-term optimistic can be developed for the Chinese market demand for the robot enterprise.

From the experience of the development of robot enterprises abroad, there are usually both ontology and parts, and the size of the robot enterprise with integrated business is much larger than that of simply integration, or only the parts business. Robot Ontology is a synthesizer of automation technology, which occupies the most important position in the whole robot industry chain, and has the biggest bargaining power. Robot ontology Enterprises can take advantage of this position to integrate upstream components enterprises and downstream systems integration enterprises.

Of course, the development of robot ontology only completes 1/3 of the work, but also need to integrate the robot body, and technology and integration technology, in order to finally meet customer needs, establish a solid competitive advantage.

The future of the domestic potential robot enterprises, it is certain to be able to develop the world's leading robot ontology enterprises, but also engaged in system integration business, and even parts business.

5. Domestic Service Robot Frontier

Similar to foreign, medical robot is China's pioneer in the industrialization of service robots, the robot and the robot at the home of the surgical robot in the domestic leading. In the field of home robotics, Suzhou Corvos is known as China's "IROBOT", its products are cheaper than abroad, and quickly occupy the domestic market.

(1) Domestic service robot industrialization Forerunner: Medical robot

The laparoscopic surgery robot has completed an animal biopsy and is expected to carry out clinical trials within 2 years. The performance of hit surgery robot is close to the Da Vinci robot of American intuition surgery, but there are more advanced places, for example, the operation robot can achieve the feedback force during operation, and further improve the quality of the doctor's operation.

In addition, Suzhou Bo as the representative of the domestic robot enterprises, actively explore other types of medical robots, such as rehabilitation robot, Gamma Saber Robot and intestinal surgery robot. The above products are expected in the next 5-10 years to truly realize industrialization.

(2) Corvos: China's irobot

Suzhou Corvos Original is Electrolux vacuum cleaner foundry Enterprise, since 2009 launched "Treasure" sweeping robot, the price of about irobot Roomba half, quickly occupy the domestic market. Estimated 2013 revenue has reached 1 billion scale, the domestic market share of over 50%.

According to experts estimate, the current home sweeping robot in the domestic penetration rate of only 0.4%, and similar products due to enter the United States market more than China earlier, since 2001 has been 12 years of fermentation, the United States now penetration rate reached 16%, so, The market prospect of home service robot represented by sweeping robot is promising.

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(ii) system Integrators "born" small

1. The current situation of China's system integrators

(1) Comparison of revenue scale between the major domestic integrated enterprises and foreign counterparts

Foreign system integrators because of the high penetration of robotics, and the current system integration needs of the automotive industry, usually with the car manufacturers have long-term cooperative relationship, the size of the revenue can be achieved close to 10 billion. Take Comau as an example, its customers in China are mainly automotive enterprises, not only foreign car customers, but also including Changan, Chery and Jianghuai and other domestic customers.

Domestic integration enterprises compared with foreign counterparts, the development time is relatively short, and in the automotive field is usually not competitive foreign integrators, so the scale is relatively small.

(2) Comparison of domestic major integrated enterprises with foreign counterparts

Foreign large-scale system integrators usually have a strong competitive advantage in some process, for example, Doyle has a strong competitive advantage in the integration of automotive coating production lines. Of course, Doyle also expands the business beyond system integration, such as cleaning and filtering systems.

Domestic systems integration enterprises are usually not limited to some kind of process, but mainly focus on a certain industry. Only the most integrated capacity of the new pine, can be taken out of the automotive industry to get many orders from other industries, of course, Siasun in addition to the system integration business, as well as logistics and warehousing equipment and transportation automation systems business. In terms of business diversification, Siasun and Doyle are similar.

(3) Comparative advantage of domestic system integrators

However, with the domestic entity manufacturers face the strong competition of foreign enterprises, domestic system integrators have many comparative advantages, including channel advantage, price advantage, engineer dividend, etc.

2. System Integrator "born" small

Four factors determine the small size of integrators

System integration project is non-standard, each project is different, not 100% copy, so it is more difficult on the scale. Can be on the scale of the general can be copied, such as the development of a product, stereotypes are rarely changed, each model products are the same, through production and sales can be a large number of copies on the scale. And because of the need for cushion, integrators often have to consider the number and scale of concurrent projects.

Because the robot is two times product, need to acquaint with the craft of the downstream industry, want to complete the work such as reprogramming, cloth put. Domestic system integrators, if focused on a certain field, usually can get higher industry barriers, survival is no problem, but also because of industry barriers, it is difficult to achieve Cross-border business expansion, through mergers and acquisitions will not work, so the scale is big and difficult. Robot system integrators are supposed to be small, at least at this stage the scale of domestic integrators is not big. Generally 100 million, 500 million and 1 billion are thresholds. 100 million of the enterprises under the majority, can do 500 million is the industry leader, more than 1 billion of the country a handful.

(1) System Integrator is a human-centered order-oriented enterprise

The core competitiveness of system integrators is talent, among which, the most core is sales personnel, project engineers and on-site installation and commissioning personnel, sales personnel responsible for taking orders, project engineers in accordance with the order requirements of the program design, installation and commissioning personnel to the customer site for installation and commissioning, and eventually delivered to the customer use. Almost every item is non-standard and cannot be copied on a simple scale.

System integrators are actually light assets of the order-type engineering service provider, the core assets are sales personnel, project engineers and installation of debugging personnel, so it is difficult for system integrators to expand the size of mergers and acquisitions.

(2) system integrators need to cushion capital

System integration of the payment is usually "3331" way, that is, the drawings through the audit to get 30%, after delivery to get 30%, installation and commissioning finished to get 30%, the last remaining 10% of the warranty. According to such a payment process, system integrators usually need to cushion the funds.

Generally speaking, the integration of financial pressure will not be too big, but if several projects at the same time, or the amount of a single project is too large, there will be financial pressure, after all, the integrator of many business is also outsourced, the need to pay suppliers, and some purchased parts are required to pay the goods.

3. The future development direction of system integrators

(1) The industry integration business outside the automotive industry rapidly increased sales from various areas of robotics can be seen, system integration business distribution changes. At present, the automobile industry is the largest application market of domestic industrial robots. With the increasing recognition of robot products in the market, robot applications are extending from automobile industry to general industry. According to IFR data, in 2011 the domestic food processing industry, metal processing industries, robot sales growth is significantly higher than the automotive industry, indicating that other areas of automotive systems integration is rapidly increasing.

(2) The system integration industry concentration reduces, the standardization level promotes because the domestic manufacturing automation demand increases rapidly, the automation integration profession is also very hot. According to the data obtained from the grassroots survey, there are more than 200 enterprises in Suzhou, which only have 4-5 years of automation system integration, and less than 30. Because of the increasing number of systems integration projects outside the automobile industry, the increase of the subdivision area will lead to further increase of system integrators. It can be predicted that the industry concentration will be further reduced in the next few years. Reference to foreign experience, the future has a core competitiveness and can be 3C and other general volume industry integration business to do fine system integrators will stand out, scale up to billions of.

System integration Another trend is that the level of project standardization will continue to improve and will benefit the integration of enterprise scale. If system integration only the robot ontology is standard, the whole project standardization level is only 30%-50%. Now many integrators in the promotion of robot body plus process standardization, the future System integration project standardization level is expected to reach about 75%.

(3) The future of system integration is the Wisdom factory

Intelligent Factory is a new stage of the development of modern factory informatization, and the core of intelligent factory is digitalization. The digitalization of informatization will penetrate every link of production, reduce the uncertainty between design and manufacture, shorten the time of product design to production transformation, and improve the reliability and success rate of products.

The future of system integrators will be directed to smart factories or digital factories, not only for hardware integration, but for top-level architecture design and software integration. Siasun Robot recent digital factory orders increase, fully illustrate this trend.

Third, manufacturing low-end production automation trend is the opportunity of domestic robots

(a) China is a manufacturing country, manufacturing efficiency needs to be improved

China is known as the "Factory of the World". In 2012, the manufacturing value added was close to 20 trillion, twice times closer to the US. But China's manufacturing per capita output is only half that of the United States, indicating that domestic productivity is significantly lower than in developed countries.

China's manufacturing industry is in transition and upgrade stage. On the one hand, the manufacturing industry seeks efficiency and flexible manufacturing; On the other hand, as human costs rise, manufacturers start looking for robots to replace people.

(b) Popularization of robots is an effective way to improve manufacturing efficiency--Japan experience

Japan's manufacturing output and GDP growth stagnated after the 1990s. But data such as manufacturing output per capita and value-added per capita manufacturing have continued to grow, indicating that, with the reduction in the number of manufacturing workers, the use of industrial robots has increased the level of automation and greatly improved productivity.

(c) "Low-end capacity" opportunities in China

Compared to the automotive industry, China's so-called "low-end capacity" huge. 2012 Auto Parts and components of the industry output value of 4.67 trillion, and food manufacturing, rubber and plastic products, ceramic products manufacturing, metal products industry and pharmaceutical manufacturing industries, such as five total output value of 8.8 trillion, almost twice times the automotive industry. In addition, the electronic components industry 2011 years of fixed assets investment amount of about 230 billion, far higher than the automotive industry 140 billion. The so-called "low-end capacity" outside these cars will need to be automatically surpassed by the auto industry.

Now foreign robot companies are accompanied by the automotive industry grow together, but they are not familiar with other so-called "low-end capacity" industry, domestic enterprises in these areas have the opportunity. Domestic appliances, ceramics, petrochemical, feed and other traditional industries have a huge capacity, there are industrial transformation and upgrading of the demand, automation trend is irreversible. and the most outstanding performance is in recent years the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River delta of private manufacturing automation needs.

The shortage of manpower is undoubtedly the main reason why domestic manufacturers need to upgrade their automation level. With regard to the current shortage of manufacturing manpower in China, there are two explanations: first, China has always lacked high-tech industrial workers, there is no environment for the transformation of migrant workers into industrial workers, the need for robots or automation equipment to fill this space; the second is that young people today do not want to do more dirty and more tired of the work, stable degree is very poor.

"Low-end capacity" for automated transformation, on the one hand, the production line is less easy to manage, at the same time, high efficiency, quality assurance, on the other hand, the company's top management to take more attention to sales, services and other more close to the market business module, to maintain the company's competitive advantage.

(iv) Domestic economy robot suitable for "low-end capacity"

As can be seen from the statistics, although the Chinese market for high-end capacity of the joint robot (that is, general six-axis robot) accounted for a large share of the market, but the growth rate is limited. The growth potential of the latter is applied to the low-end capacity of the economical robot, such as Scara robot, parallel robot and so on.

According to IHS data, the 2012 domestic robot market, the general six-axis robot accounted for the largest, about 87%. However, due to the rapid increase in automation requirements outside the automotive sector, it is estimated that from 2012 to 2017, Scara robots and parallel robots generate revenue that is expected to grow the fastest because of the labour shortages faced by their industries, rising labour costs and so on. That is, food and beverage, 3C and other labor-intensive industries, more and more enterprises use robots.

As the so-called "low-end capacity" demand continues to increase, it is estimated that the future general six-axis robot market share will continue to decline, but still domestic use of the main robot body.

1. "Low-end capacity" automation needs of the classic case: 3C industry

Because most of the global 3C industry capacity in China, in the past the main use of domestic human cost advantages, low degree of automation. From Foxconn's million-robot program, it is known that the domestic 3C industry is now in a critical phase of machine replacement labor. 3 C industry has four major, namely the income is big, the enterprise scale is big, the employment personnel base is big and the robot replaces the demand to be big, is the implementation automation upgrades one of the best professions.

3 c industry will use a part of six-axis robots, such as grinding, handling, but the most widely used in the assembly of the Scara robot, as well as for the dispensing and soldering of the desktop robot. 3 c industry includes a number of large enterprises, such as Foxconn, Asus, BenQ, song acoustic and AAC technology, there are also a large number of small and medium-sized electronics factories.

(1) 3C Industry assembly "Master": Scara Robot

Scara robot is mainly used in 3C industry, the theory market is very big. For example, ASUS, employees 100,000 people, at least 10,000 people are in the production line screws, each production line has 10-20 working position is to hit the screws. If you use the Scara robot to hit screws, the artificial substitution space will be very large.

Now Scara in the 3C industry application level has not completely broken through, the market demand has not fully reflected, but the potential for the next few years huge. At present, the domestic market Scara sales of about 3000 units.

The scale of Scara robot enterprise is generally small, it is estimated that Epson's Scara robot sells about 2000 units a year, with sales of nearly 200 million. But in the future China is expected to grow a very large volume of Scara robot enterprises.

(2) 3C industry tin Welding and dispensing desktop robot

The potential demand of the domestic 3C industry for desktop solder and dispensing robots is enormous, with a theoretical market capacity of tens of billions of. The desktop robots of Japanese companies are also moving into the Chinese market as the electronics industry moves to China. The electronics industry has the product renewal relatively fast, to the production line investment recovery period request stricter, the general request within one year, or six months, therefore the robot body and the system integration price is very sensitive.

Previous foreign (mainly Japanese enterprises, including car Le Mei, IAI, Epson and Yamaha, etc.) robot price is high, each 150,000 to 200,000, expensive, many domestic electronic enterprises cannot afford. Since the domestic robot enterprises (such as Changzhou fast grams, hit Ming race) to develop low-cost robots (single price 450,000), 3C industry on the desktop robot market demand has increased rapidly.

2. Recent two years of strong demand for robot applications

The front mainly from the industry point of view to analyze the needs of the robot, leaving aside the industry factors, from the specific application areas, the demand for rapid growth in the past two years, including machine tools (including sheet metal), palletizing and handling, grinding and spraying, as well as casting and so on.

According to IHS data, 2012 China's largest industrial robot application area is welding, accounting for 51%, the main use of general-purpose six-axis robot. It is estimated that from 2012 to 2017 the annual compound growth rate is 4.5%.

The most common applications of the 3 C industry are assembly/disassembly, solder welding and dispensing. Many 3C businesses are facing a shortage of labor and rising wages and management costs. Because of the high repeatability of work, special robots such as Scara robots can perform these simple actions well. It is estimated that future assembly/disassembly applications are expected to grow the fastest, with a combined growth rate of 20.6% per cent from 2012 to 2017.

Material operation is the second largest application area, accounting for 24%, mainly including material handling, stacking, and machining. Due to the increasing concern for workers ' safety and the rising wage cost, more and more industrial robots are being introduced into the process of material operation. This area is expected to grow at a compound growth rate of 14.8% per cent from 2012 to 2017.

(v) Estimation of the cost of automatic renovation of domestic manufacturing industry

(1) The future domestic overall automation market capacity measurement

By estimating the process of domestic manufacturing capacity automation transformation, the 2020 Automation integration market capacity of China is expected to reach 176.3 billion yuan.

According to industry research, the general 3-400 million revenue-scale manufacturing enterprises, usually need 10 million-20 million of automation costs. Therefore, we estimate the cost of China's manufacturing automation reform according to the ratio of 4% (350 million-15 million).

Considering the automation of some industries can not be fully replaced by the robot, and the implementation of automated transformation takes time, is expected to 2020 the domestic manufacturing capacity of automated transformation rate reached 60%.

2012 domestic major manufacturing industry total revenue size of about 20 trillion, assuming that different industries in the next annual growth rate of 8% to 15%, is expected to the 2020 domestic major manufacturing total revenue size reached 46 trillion.

According to the above conditions, it can be estimated that 2017 China's manufacturing automation cost of 115.3 billion yuan, 2020 will reach 176.3 billion yuan.

(2) Domestic robot market capacity forecast

2012 China's robot body market reached 4.8 billion yuan, coupled with integration, the robot market capacity amounted to 19.2 billion yuan.

Combined with industry experts, the Chinese robot market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 20% to 30% in the next 10-20 years.

Robot is the innovation of manufacturing automation. By 2020, the robot market capacity forecast was 123.4 billion yuan, accounting for 70% of total automation cost estimates, because there are some automated modifications that do not require robots.

The recent breakthrough direction and future development stage of domestic robot industry

(a) The breakthrough idea of each link in the industrial chain

In recent years, the robot industry in China needs to break through in three aspects, such as key parts, Robot ontology and system integration.

In the key parts breakthrough, there are two kinds of ideas, including self-control and deep cooperation with external enterprises, reducer localization is the most important; in the ontology, long-term optimistic can break through the key parts of the ontology enterprises, domestic-oriented short-term breakthrough direction of production capacity of the automatic replacement, long-term view or to high-end development. Domestic system integrators have comparative advantages over foreign countries, the direction of development includes two: first, in the volume ratio of the larger application areas do deep, accompanied by the growth of downstream enterprises; second, there is the ability to work across the field, across the field to take a single on the scale.

(ii) possible breakthroughs and major directions in the next 3-5 years

Key components: Joint components are expected to achieve a major breakthrough, especially RV reducer and harmonic reducer, RV Reducer is expected to take 3-5 years, but the harmonic reducer may be faster. The servo motor may make a breakthrough through the way of overseas mergers and acquisitions.

Low cost six-axis universal robot: At present, the localization of harmonic reducer should not be too long, small six-axis general-purpose robot may soon develop Low-cost ontology. And from the global robot application from the automobile to other industries, the trend of diffusion, small robot market potential is huge. Recently, domestic robot enterprises have made rapid progress in the field of small robots. Large robot needs to wait for RV reducer to break through first. It is estimated that the next 5 years will be 51 billion of the six-axis General robotics enterprise.

Four-axis special robot: With the domestic "low-end capacity" automation needs to increase, truss robots, Scara robots, Delta parallel robot and Desktop robot market demand will rapidly increase. The robot enterprise, which can develop the above four-axis robot, is expected to achieve 51 billion revenue scale in the next 5 years.

Free programmable automation equipment: Similar to AGV other programmable automation equipment, suitable for domestic "low-end capacity."

Medical robot: Domestic service robot will be one of the main development direction in the domestic robot industry in the next few years, especially the medical robot has made great progress, for example, the laparoscopic minimally invasive surgery robot will be implemented in two years, other such as rehabilitation robot is expected to soon realize industrialization.

More than 1 billion of the scale of the system integrators: as the system integration standardization gradually increased, as well as the emergence of more cross domain system integration capabilities of enterprises, will appear more than 1 billion integration business of integrators, and there may be the use of domestic economic ontology large-scale system integrators.

Other advanced robot technology: At present the domestic robot industry is in the innovation active period, the entrepreneurial robot enterprise may obtain the innovation breakthrough in the robot intelligence, the robot vision technology, the human-computer interaction, obtains the world leading achievement.

(iii) Three stages of the long-term development of the domestic robot industry

At present, China's robotics industry is in the rising stage, the next 5 years is expected to continue this stage, the rapid development of domestic robot industry. After that, with the development of global robotics, the domestic industrial robot industry is gradually becoming mature. After 15, the domestic robot industry is expected to flourish, when robots will walk into the home, service robots are exploding.

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)