30+2 research reports forecast significant growth for robot industry

Press releases for this batch of 30 research reports all agree that most segments of the robotics industry are expected to grow at a double-digit pace at least through 2022.

Although these reports vary widely in their forecasts – often on the same topic, they all seem to agree that the global robotics industry is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the teens or greater.

Unmanned mobile air, land and sea vehicles (commercial and military)

• Commercial UAV Report
  Aug 2017, Interact Analysis, free
  Industry revenues for commercial-use drones are forecast to reach $15 billion by 2022, up from just $1.3 billion in 2016. This includes revenues from hardware, software/analytics and drone services. Rapidly increasing penetration rates into a huge number of commercial applications are driving a six-fold increase in drone shipments, surpassing 620,000 units in 2022. Only the trend of using drone service providers rather than purchasing hardware will temper this growth.
• Global driverless tractors market
  Nov 2017, 109 pages, QY Research, $3,500
  Describes offerings from John Deere, Autonomous Tractor, AGCO/Fendt and CNH/Cash IH.
• Robotics for ag, construction, warehousing & logistics, telepresence and customer service
  Nov 2017, 127 pages, Tractica, $4,200
  Tractica forecasts that worldwide shipments of enterprise robots will grow from approximately 83,000 units in 2016 to 1.2 million units in 2022, increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57% during that period.  Worldwide revenue for the enterprise robotics market will increase from $5.9 billion in 2016 to $67.9 billion in 2022.
• Global indoor robots market
  Oct 2017, 223 pages, BIS Research, $4,499
  The global indoor robots market, which consists of cleaning, medical, security & surveillance, public relations, education, entertainment, and personal assistant robots, generated $3.7 billion in 2016 and has exhibited a high growth rate.
• Global defense counter-UAS technologies
  Oct 2017, Frost & Sullivan, $1,500
  Over 50 global defense companies now offer some sort of counter unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS).
• Military robots market
  Sep 2017, 186 pages, Reports n Reports, $5,650
  The military robots market is expected to grow from an estimated $16.79 billion in 2017 to $30.83 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 12.92%. Drivers for military robots include rising number of terrorist activities, increasing need of systems that can conduct remote operations for a longer time, and technological developments in unmanned systems. Mine clearance is expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period.
• Global EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Robot Market
  Sep 2017, 101 pages, Absolute Reports, $4,000
  The Global Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Robot market is valued at $5.98 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach $8 billion by the end of 2022, growing at an annual CAGR of 4.6%.
• Autonomous underwater vehicle market
  Aug 2017, Markets and Markets, $5,650
  The market for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is expected to grow from $362.5 million in 2017 to $1,206.9 million by 2023, at a CAGR of 22.20% between 2017 and 2023.

Industrial, collaborative and sensors

• Worldwide spending on robotics
  July 2017, IDC, subscription service
  IDC forecasts worldwide purchases of robotics, including drones and robotics-related hardware, software and services, will total $97.2 billion in 2017, an increase of 17.9% over 2016. IDC expects robotics spending to accelerate over the next five years reaching $230.7 billion in 2021 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.8%.
• Global collaborative robots market
  Nov 2017, Energias Market Research, $4,895
  The Global Collaborative Robots market is expected to increase from $177.2 million in 2016, to $4,238.3 million in 2023, at a significant CAGR of 57.4% from 2017 to 2023. Increasing investments in automation by industries to support industry 4.0 revolution (smart production), low price of collaborative robots and high return on investment (ROI) rates are the factors attributing towards the growth of the global collaborative market during the forecast period.
• Global industrial robots market and trends
  Dec 2017, 350 pages, Data Bridge Market Research, $4,200
  The Global Industrial Robots Market accounted to $38.20 billion in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 9.54% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024. The upcoming market report contains data for historic years 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2024.
• Global industrial and service robots market
  Nov 2017, 125 pages, QY Research, $3,560
  No forecasts available for this report.
• Global robot programming services market
  Oct 2017, 87 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
  TechNavio forecasts that the market will grow steadily at a CAGR of around 12% through 2021.
• Global industrial robotics rental market
  Jul 2017, 81 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
  TechNavio forecasts the global industrial robotics rental market to grow at a CAGR of 13.58% during the period 2017-2021.
• Industrial robotics market
  Oct 2017, 114 pages, Variant Market Research, $3,746
  Variant forecasts this market to reach $77.7 billion by 2024 growing at an annual CAGR of 9.3% from 2017 to 2024.
• Global industrial robot positioners market
  Mar 2017, 70 pages, TechNavio, $3,500
  For blind robots to pick an object those objects must be properly positioned – a niche industry that is forecast to grow at a 7% CAGR.
• US Co-bot market
  Nov 2017, 104 pages, QY Research, $3,500
  No forecasts available for this report.
• Global collaborative robots market
  2017, Inkwood Research, $2,500
  Global Collaborative Robots market is expected to grow at 49.14% CAGR during the forecast period 2017-2025; North America collaborative robots market was valued at $74 million in 2016 and is estimated to generate a net revenue of approximately $1592 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 40.93%.
• Packaging robot market
  Oct 2017, 120 pages, ReportLinker, $4,795
  Forecasts the global packaging robot market to grow at a CAGR of 13.9% from 2017 to 2023.
• Global collaborative robots market
  Oct 2017, GMI Research, $4,786
  The market for collaborative robots is expected to grow at a CAGR of 56.6% from 2017 to 2023. Drivers are towards automation as well as growing demand for compact, lightweight and dexterous robots along with low average selling price and higher returns by investing on collaborative robots.
• Global industrial robot reducer sales market
  Sep 2017, 108 pages, QY Research, $4,000
  The report reviews the major drive providers (Nabtesco, Harmonic Drive, Sumitomo) and four new Chinese providers as well (an important factor since there is a major backlog in harmonic drive production and much of the demand is for robots in China).
• Innovations in sensor space
  Oct 2017, Frost & Sullivan, $6,950

  Low power, smaller, lighter sensors with enhanced performance attributes and minimal false alarms is driving innovations in the sensors space for safety systems, wearables, drones, radar and intrusion detection.

Professional, agricultural, commercial and consumer service robots

• Global Agriculture robot market
  Sep 2017, Energias Market Research, $4,895
  The global Agriculture Robot market is expected to increase from $1.03 billion in 2016, to $4.7 billion in 2023, at a CAGR of 24.31% from 2017 to 2023. The overall Agriculture Robots market is mainly driven by the focus on technological innovations such as precision farming to enhance the yield of crops.
• Global Robot Lawn Mowers Market
  Sep 2017, 127 pages, Market Insights Reports, $2,900
  Europe was the largest production market with a market share of 48.63% in 2016, it is also the biggest consumption market with a market share of 59.44% in 2016. North America ranked the second markets with the production market share of 33.28% in 2016 and with the consumption share of 32.52% in 2016.
• Commercial robotics market
  Oct 2017, Transparency Market Research, $5,950
  The global commercial robotics market is set to rise to $17.6 billion by 2022 at a CAGR of 24.4% beginning at $5.9 billion by the end of 2017, 40% of which is medical robotics.
• Agricultural robots market
  Sep 2017, 205 pages, Allied Market Research, $3,840
  The global agricultural robots market is estimated to account for a market revenue of $2,927 million in 2016 and is expected to reach to $11,050 million in 2023.
• Food robotics market
  Oct 2017, 203 pages, Meticulous Market Research, $4,175
  Global Food Robotics Market is expected to reach $2.2 billion by 2022 supported by a CAGR of 12.5% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2022. Drivers include lack of skilled workforce, increasing food safety regulations, rising demand for advanced food packaging and growing demand to improve productivity.
• Global service robotics market
  Oct 2017, 241 pages, Berg Insight AB, $1,890
  Ten major segments hold great market potential for next decade: floor cleaning robots, robot lawn mowers, milking robots, telepresence robots, surgical robots, automated guided vehicles, autonomous mobile robots, unmanned aerial vehicles and humanoid, assistant and social companion robots. The installed base of service robots in these segments reached 29.6 million worldwide at the end of 2016.
• Humanoid Robot Market
  Oct 2017, 133 pages, ReportsnReports, $5,650
  The humanoid robot market is expected to reach $3.9 billion by 2023 from $320.3 million in 2017, at a CAGR of 52.1% between 2017 and 2023. This growth can be attributed to the introduction of advanced features in humanoid robots, the increasing use of humanoids as educational robots, and growing demand from the retail industry for personal assistance.
• Anthropomorphic robot sales
  Nov 2017, 126 pages, QY Research, $4,000
  Covers top manufacturers Softbank, Robotis, Hanson, Ubtech, Hasbro, Wowwee, Qihan and basic uses for this type of robot in education, entertainment, space, R&D, personal assistance, caregiving, search & rescue and PR.

Two International Federation of Robotics Annual Reports

The fact-based backbone for many of the research reports shown above are the International Federation of Robotics’ (IFR) annual World Robotics Industrial Robots and World Robotics Service Robots reports. These two books represent the official tabulation and analysis from all the robot associations around the world and cover all aspects of industrial and service robotics.The 2017 reports cover 2016 activity.

Industrial Robots: By 2020 the IFR estimates that more than 1.7 million new industrial robots will be installed in factories worldwide. In 2017 robot installations are estimated to increase by 21% in the Asia-Australia region. Robot supplies in the Americas will surge by 16% and in Europe by 8%.

Service Robots: The IFR estimated that sales of all types of robots for domestic tasks – e.g. vacuum cleaning, lawnmowing, window cleaning – could reach almost 32 million units in the period 2018-2020, with an estimated value of about $11.7 billion. At the same time total unit sales of professional service robots are estimated to reach a total of almost $18.8 billion – about 400,000 units will be sold.

The two reports can be purchased from the IFR for $2,100 (€1800 + VAT where applicable). The reports can also be purchased separately: the industrial report in pdf format costs $1,400 (€1200)​ and the service report $700 (€600).

Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.

Frank Tobe is the owner and publisher of The Robot Report, and is also a panel member for Robohub's Robotics by Invitation series.