SINGAPORE (Jan 24): Spending on robotics and associated services in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) is forecast to hit US$129.4 billion ($175.9 billion) by 2022 – three times the spending in 2018, according to global market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
"To survive the escalating competition, APEJ manufacturing organizations surveyed by IDC in 2018 are putting robotics as their top priority for technology investment," says Dr Zhang Jing Bing, research director for worldwide robotics at IDC. “While the uncertainty of the trade war between the United States and China is likely to dampen the market growth in the near term, we expect the growth trend to pick up from 2020 onward.”
Discrete manufacturing is the dominant industry in robotics spending, including drones. This accounts for 46.1% of overall spend in APEJ in 2019, according to the latest IDC Worldwide Semiannual Robotics and Drones Spending Guide.
The process manufacturing industry has the second-highest overall spending in robotics in the region, with 12.0% of market share.
“There has been an intensive wave of industrial automation for which robotics and drones provide a major base; hence attracting investments with each passing year. Under Robotics, despite manufacturing being a dominant industry in this area, investments will continue to increase in resource industry, retail, construction, among others,” says Swati Chaturvedi, senior market analyst at IDC.
“On the other hand, drones, which are majorly a consumer-oriented technology, are gaining momentum in its industrial usage by enterprises and governments alike for tasks as mundane as filmmaking and inspection or as complex as agricultural uses, mining operations assistance, and insurance assessment,” Chaturvedi adds.
China accounts largest market share in the Asia Pacific robotics market. Its spending on robotics is expected to reach US$80.5 billion, representing 62.2% of APEJ region's total spending in 2022.
