The companies making China a robotics powerhouse

Jill Shen contributed to this story.

Last year marked a historic milestone for China’s robotics industry.

For the first time, local firms overtook foreign players in the country’s domestic industrial robotics market, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

That segment had been the only category still dominated by foreign companies before this. For the other four segments – collaborative robots, service robots, mobile robots, and drones – Chinese firms now command over 90% of domestic market share, according to a June report by Morgan Stanley.

For this report, Tech in Asia has charted a map of prominent Chinese firms in the industry across different categories. We also spoke to experts about how the country will likely see homegrown champions emerge in what may be the next frontier in robotics: humanoids.

Cleaning up in the home market

As of 2024, around 40% of the global robotics market is in China, and this figure is likely to grow with the country’s faster adoption of intelligent machines, Morgan Stanley analysts predict.

Among categories, drones are currently the biggest – both in the nation and globally – with market sizes of US$19 billion and US$40 billion, respectively.