In the first half of 2025, China’s industrial robot industry showed a significant recovery trend, with continuous signals of industry warming being released, and the “dual momentum” of technological innovation and market expansion accelerating.
From the perspective of corporate profitability, among the 10 listed companies in the industrial robot sector, only 4 reported losses, a significant improvement compared to the 7 losses in the first half of 2024, indicating a restoration of industry profitability. Notably, leading companies performed exceptionally well:
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Estun, as the industry leader, achieved a year-on-year revenue growth of 17.5% in the first half of the year, with net profit increasing by over 109.10% year-on-year. More importantly, Estun’s industrial robot shipments surpassed foreign brands for the first time, ranking first in the domestic market. Its focus on the new energy sector has led to the implementation of robotic application solutions for lithium battery giants such as CATL and BYD, and deep involvement in the construction of the world’s first “lighthouse factory” in the photovoltaic sector, covering the entire process from silicon wafers and battery cells to modules. In the automotive manufacturing sector, high-precision six-axis robots have been mass-produced for leading automotive companies, successfully developing flexible production lines for export.
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Inovance Technology, leveraging its advantages in core components, has a market share of 28.3% for its general servo systems in China, ranking first; its SCARA robots also hold the top position in the domestic market (27.3%), with overall industrial robot sales ranking third in the domestic market (8.8%). The company utilizes its dominant position in core components such as servos, inverters, and controls to drive sales of its complete robot products, forming a strong “component – complete machine” synergy.
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New Times focuses on welding solutions for automotive parts, providing welding solutions for automotive manufacturers and their suppliers. Its automotive seat frame welding workstation employs dual robot coordination, paired with a self-developed external axis system, ensuring welding quality while improving production efficiency, with machine efficiency 2.5 times that of manual labor. Additionally, it uses low-spatter welding technology, reducing spatter by 65%-80%, resulting in well-formed weld seams, driving the company to achieve double-digit growth in revenue and net profit.
In terms of market scale, the production of industrial robots in China reached 369,300 units, a year-on-year increase of 30.40%, continuing the previous growth momentum. The recovery in specific sectors has become a core driving force:
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The automotive industry continues to recover. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the procurement of robots in the automotive manufacturing sector has significantly increased in the first half of the year. For example, in BYD’s newly built intelligent vehicle factory in Xi’an, nearly 300 welding robots were invested in the welding process, achieving an automation rate of over 97%. In addition to traditional spot welding, there are also multiple high-tech processes such as laser welding and stud welding, achieving high-precision, automated welding, with the ability to produce seventy car bodies per hour and switch between eleven different models.
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In the 3C electronics sector, although some consumer demand was released in advance, the “two new” policies have driven an increase in the production of key products such as microcomputers and smartphones, boosting demand for industrial robots.
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In the new energy sector, the expansion tide of lithium battery and photovoltaic companies continues, with companies like Efort achieving breakthrough results in the photovoltaic industry. Since entering the photovoltaic market in 2017, Efort robots have quickly established a leading position in this field due to their excellent performance and continuous technological innovation, with market shares in some process segments reaching over 80%. In the highly technical photovoltaic cell insertion process, Efort collaborates closely with leading domestic photovoltaic companies, continuously optimizing to match foreign competitors in yield and efficiency metrics.
At the same time, competition in “new tracks” such as ship welding, semiconductors, and metal processing is intensifying. Estun has achieved a technological breakthrough in heavy-duty robots, with its 700kg heavy-duty robot selected for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s first set catalog, and its independently developed 1000kg ultra-heavy-duty robot further filling the gap in domestic heavy-duty robots, breaking the international technological blockade. These heavy-duty robots are used in aerospace component processing, with positioning accuracy reaching ±0.05mm, comparable to international counterparts.
The overseas market is showing “differentiated development”: some companies face challenges, with companies like Tuobang facing pressure on overseas business growth due to changes in the market environment; however, some companies have achieved breakthroughs, such as Efort successfully entering the high-end market in Western Europe through deep cooperation with European robot integrators.
In terms of technological trends, artificial intelligence is accelerating penetration, creating new competitive focal points:
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Embodied intelligent robots are becoming a “new arena”. UBTECH has made breakthroughs in humanoid robots, signing a large procurement contract for bipedal humanoid robots with a client in April, and winning a bid for a robot equipment procurement project worth 90.5115 million yuan from Miyi Automotive in July, setting a record for the highest single bid amount for humanoid robot companies globally. The company expects to deliver over 500 industrial humanoid robots by 2025, with an annual production capacity reaching 1000 units.
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Collaborative robots are steadily gaining popularity, with market penetration continuing to increase. Yujian Technology, as the “first stock” of collaborative robots, achieved operating revenue of 153 million yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 27.1%. Among them, six-axis collaborative robots became the core driving force for revenue growth, achieving sales revenue of 93.646 million yuan in the first half of 2025, accounting for 61.2% of total revenue, a significant increase of 46.7% compared to the same period last year, with particularly outstanding performance in the industrial market in mainland China and Europe.
Overall, in the first half of 2025, China’s industrial robot industry is moving towards a new stage of development characterized by “simultaneous quantity and quality improvement” amidst the intertwining of market recovery, technological iteration, and globalization. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that this growth trend is closely related to the increase in fixed asset investment in manufacturing, with the cumulative growth rate of fixed asset investment in the national manufacturing sector reaching 7.5% in the first half of the year, and the fixed asset investment in the automotive industry maintaining a rapid growth rate of 22.2%, providing strong support for robot demand.
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