At the 2025 China Robotics Industry Development Conference, the China Machinery Industry Federation released the “14th Five-Year Plan” development report for the robotics industry. In terms of industry scale, the revenue of the robotics industry was 106.1 billion yuan in 2020, expected to increase to 237.89 billion yuan by 2024, effectively doubling; in the first three quarters of this year, the industry’s revenue grew by 29.5% year-on-year.
Regarding market share, the domestic market share of self-owned brand industrial robots increased from 31.4% in 2020 to 58.5% in 2024.
“During the ’14th Five-Year Plan’ period, China’s robotics industry has developed rapidly, forming a relatively complete industrial chain system,” said Xu Niansha, president of the China Machinery Industry Federation.
Stronger Capabilities
High-performance industrial robots for heavy load, welding, and spraying have been successfully applied
At the 25th China International Industrial Expo, Estun’s heavy-duty robot lifted a 1200 kg weight, repeatedly transporting it while maintaining stability throughout.
“The end load is one of the key functional technical indicators of robots. As industrial robots integrate into manufacturing processes, the market demand for heavy-duty robots with high rigidity, high precision, and high reliability is increasing,” said a representative from Nanjing Estun Automation Co., Ltd.
China’s heavy-duty robots have long relied on imports, with domestic equipment accounting for less than 3% at one point. During the ’14th Five-Year Plan’ period, Chinese companies achieved a breakthrough, with Estun’s 700 kg industrial robot receiving hundreds of orders in 2024, and this year, they launched a 1000 kg product.
Welding is the “sewing thread” of modern industry. “Our welding robots can achieve high-speed, high-load, and high-stability spot welding operations, with the fastest single weld taking only 2.2 seconds,” said a representative from Shenyang Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd.
Looking at painting, traditional production lines require 3 to 5 days for full vehicle painting, while the production line using Efort robots can complete it in just over 80 seconds.
“The new technology launched this year allows robots to integrate intelligent process systems internally, automatically completing processes such as color matching, color changing, spraying, and cleaning,” said Wang Jinsong, an engineer at Efort Intelligent Robot Co., Ltd.
In the first three quarters of this year, China’s industrial robot production reached 595,000 units, surpassing the total for last year.
Better Support
Key industry enterprises have achieved over 80% localization rate for complete machine products
The rapid development of the robotics industry is inseparable from the accumulation of the industrial chain.
From high-precision reducers and high-performance servo systems to intelligent controllers, the supporting capabilities of key components are steadily increasing.
Harmonic reducers, the “joints” of robots, mainly consist of flexible wheels, wave generators, and rigid wheels. Among them, the flexible wheel has a wall thickness of only 0.2 mm, and the processing precision of its involute gear shape must reach the micron level. Foreign products are expensive and have long delivery times. Now, domestic harmonic reducers have over 40% market share in the domestic market.
“After 20 years of research and development, we have basically approached the level of international leading enterprises in key parameters such as rated torque and repeat positioning accuracy,” said Li Qian, deputy general manager of Luyuan Harmonic Drive.
Servo motors are the “muscles” of robots and are key factors for precise movement of robot joints. Shenzhen Inovance Technology Co., Ltd. has surpassed foreign brands in the domestic servo system market share.
At the Inovance production base in Yueyang, Hunan, the rotor production line has achieved full-process automation, and the stator production line’s automation rate has also reached 70%. “The intelligent production line not only ensures high precision and high reliability of products but also makes customized services possible,” said a representative from Inovance Technology.
Meanwhile, domestic suppliers are playing an increasingly important role in the production and manufacturing of robots. Song Xiaogang, executive vice president of the Robotics Branch of the China Machinery Industry Federation, introduced that China’s robotics supporting industry system is becoming increasingly complete, with significant improvements in technical level and industrialization capabilities, and the localization rate of complete machine products from key industry enterprises exceeds 80%.
Wider Applications
Manufacturing robot density ranks third globally
By the end of 2024, the number of industrial robots in China is expected to exceed 2 million, ranking first in the world.
In 2024, the sales of industrial robots in the Chinese market are expected to reach 302,000 units, a 68.7% increase compared to 2020, accounting for 54% of global total sales.
In terms of application scope, by 2024, domestic brand industrial robots are expected to cover 71 major categories and 241 subcategories of the national economy, covering 51% of the subcategories of the national economy, an increase of 19 major categories and 98 subcategories compared to 2020.
Among them, the density of manufacturing robots has jumped from eighth in the world in 2020 to third in 2024.
Robots are rapidly entering factories. China has built more than 35,000 basic-level intelligent factories, over 230 excellent-level intelligent factories, and 1,260 5G factories.
Looking ahead, intelligence and specialization are two key development directions.
“As artificial intelligence technology accelerates its penetration into vertical industries, robots are deeply integrating with artificial intelligence technology,” said Song Xiaogang, indicating that robots are rapidly transforming from “functional equipment” that executes repetitive and programmed tasks to “intelligent partners” with perception, decision-making, and autonomous execution capabilities.
Recently, Efort launched a voice-interactive palletizing robot that requires no programming and can be operated through voice commands.
“Ordinary robots only have the function of ‘hands’, while this product also has ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’.” A relevant person from Efort explained, “The ‘eyes’ use visual technology to accurately locate the position of items through cameras; the ‘ears’ use voice recognition and big data models to automatically input commands and generate code.
Specialization is also a direction for the robotics industry to focus on. In response to the issue of some companies overly concentrating on a few tracks leading to fierce competition, Song Xiaogang stated: “We will guide companies to expand and deepen applications in various fields of manufacturing and services, develop in a differentiated manner, and discover more business opportunities.”
Editor｜Fang JinglunSource｜People’s Daily (November 28, 2025 Page 03)