The industrial robot market has undergone drastic changes after the epidemic. Today, we turn our attention to service robots, restore the trajectory of global service robots from multiple definitions, and focus on the future trends of the Chinese market.

Since the epidemic, the increase in global service robots has not shown the slow pace of industrial robots "stagnating and then rising sharply", but has steadily increased.

Let’s look at the group data first. According to IFR calculations, total global service robot sales in 2020 were US$11.1 billion (70.9 billion yuan), an increase of 5% from the previous year; total sales were 150,000 units, an increase of 35%. in:

Professional service robots: Sales volume was 131,800 units, a year-on-year increase of 41%; sales reached US$6.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12%.

Consumer service robots: Sales volume was 19 million units, a year-on-year increase of 6%; sales reached US$4.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16%.

By 2021, the China Electronics Society believes that the total sales growth rate of global service robots will be as high as 32.2%.

Between the two data, we can see the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and the emergence of the functions of service robots.

Disinfection robot in the field of professional cleaning robots. There are 50 companies around the world that can provide this set of terminals, which will bring some technological innovations. The new ultraviolet disinfection robot can monitor humans in the disinfection range through infrared cameras to prevent ultraviolet rays from harming innocent people.

During the epidemic, the logistics robot market that solves the "last mile" of food and drug distribution has been one of the fastest-growing sales segments in the field of service robots in the past two years. More professional medical and agricultural robots are rushing to the market with higher technologies.

There are also several underlying technologies that have long promoted the replacement of service robots - AI and related cloud computing and 5G.

In the future, service robots will be more closely integrated with these technologies - this is also a requirement for the service robot industry in China's "14th Five-Year Plan".

Next you will see:

After the epidemic, which products will step on the accelerator for continued growth of the global service robot market?

China’s definition of service robots is different from the international definition. What are the considerations behind it?

What new directions will the 14th Five-Year Plan bring to China’s service robots?

1. Global service robots hit the highest growth rate in 5 years

According to estimates from the China Electronics Society, world service robot sales will reach US$14.6 billion, with an annual growth rate of 32.2%. This is the peak growth rate since 2016, and also makes service robots one of the fastest growing segments in China’s tertiary industry.

However, we need to realize that this wave of growth is driven by the new crown epidemic. The epidemic will one day end. The China Electronics Society predicts that the growth rate of world service robot sales will drop to about 27% in 2022.

This shows that after the capital fever subsides, the industry will return to calmness, and companies need to think about and research potential applications and markets in subdivided fields. Ultimately, the world service robot market will exceed the sales mark of US$20 billion in 2023.

When the impact of the epidemic on service robots weakens, who will continue to export growth momentum in the field of service robots? We have sorted out 5 professional robot tracks that have developed rapidly in recent times:

1. Autonomous mobile robots (AMR) and delivery robots (AGV): Sales exceeded US$1 billion in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 11%. In the total output of professional service robots, it accounts for more than 1/3. As production and lifestyle will become more flexible in the future, sales of AMR and robots with similar functions will further increase.

2. Professional cleaning robots: Affected by the epidemic, demand increased by 92% in 2020, with sales of 34,000 units. It is expected to still grow at an average double-digit rate every year from 2021 to 2024.

3. Medical robots (surgical robots): Although they only account for 13% of the total sales of professional service robots, driven by robotic surgical equipment during the epidemic, sales accounted for more than 55%. This is a high-tech, high-value-added field, with 75% of suppliers coming from North America and Europe.

4. Hotel food delivery robots: The COVID-19 epidemic has opened up space for close contact between people, and also left room for hotel robots to appear. Sales in 2020 were US$249 million. Among them, the sales of food and beverage production robots increased by 196%, reaching US$32 million. In the future, hotel food delivery robots will continue to grow.

5. Agricultural robots: Performance was stable during the epidemic. Agricultural picking robots sold 7,000 units, accounting for 6% of the total sales of professional service robots. With the progress of intelligent agriculture in various countries around the world, the advantages of agricultural robots in segmentation and specialization are becoming more and more obvious.

After a brief summary, you will find that the epidemic has given rise to the demand for professional service robots, and the development and changes of AI technology have filled the gap in the implementation of demand. Let’s look at the field of consumer service robots. There is a hot item here – sweeping robots.

In 2020, global sales of sweeping robots and mopping robots were 17.2 million units, accounting for more than 90% of the total sales of 19 million household consumer robots. In 2021, sweeping robots will take 27% of the global consumer service robot market share with sales of 10.8 billion.

However, the penetration rate of sweeping robots in the global market is still less than 5%, indicating that there is still a lot of room for market expansion in the future as consumer attitudes change.

After understanding these two fields, we can see that in the future, service robots will continue to be subdivided in application scenarios and service methods, going deep into various fields, and the industry scale will also grow accordingly.

2. Planning and layout of two sides in one body

Different from the IFR's perspective of dividing consumer and commercial service robots, China's classification of service robots is more detailed, mainly including personal, household (consumer) service robots, public service robots, and special service robots. To put it simply, they are consumer, public and special categories that meet the needs of to C, to G and to B.

According to this definition, in 2021, China's service robot market will be 39.4 billion yuan, accounting for 47% of the entire Chinese robot market, including 23% for consumer categories, 13% for public categories, and 11% for special categories.

You must be curious why the classification of service robots in the Chinese context is not on the same frequency as IFR.

Splitting professional service robots into to B and to G reflects two perspectives of the same product - the interpretation of service robots from both the enterprise and government levels.

The "one" behind the two sides is the country's thinking on "unmanned service" and robot replacement: on the one hand, as service robots are included in various national policies, they gradually begin to undertake medical care, underwater operations, search and rescue, and space exploration. Highly demanding assignments. On the other hand, the proportion of the tertiary industry in GDP is gradually increasing, and service industry companies also hope to enhance their brand image and user experience through high-tech additions.

Under the two-sided integration, public and special service robots will penetrate into daily life at multiple levels and dimensions in an "infrastructure-style" manner.

This kind of integration is not a simple accumulation of market shares, but creates new connections and business opportunities at the intersection of to B and to G fields, and brings a market worth hundreds of billions.

For example, to B's cleaning robot originally only provided cleaning work for commercial buildings. During the epidemic in 2020, the market size reached 5.81 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 120%. By 2021, the growth rate is still 175%.

This is because the cleaning scope of cleaning robots has expanded from the original commercial buildings to public areas such as hospitals. It is estimated that by 2025, cleaning robots will reach a market size of 74.91 billion yuan.

For another example, in addition to its original logistics and in-park operations, AMR delivery robots are developing equally rapidly in the hotel and catering industries. In 2021, the market size of hotel and catering terminal delivery robots will exceed 10 billion yuan, which is the same as the previous year. 2.5 times, and it is expected that by 2025, the market size will exceed 30 billion yuan.

The two products were pushed onto the market stage by the epidemic, but from different perspectives, they can still maintain their subsequent growth vitality.

Even collaborative robots under the category of industrial robots will increasingly cross over into the service field as core components are gradually replaced by domestic products and costs are further reduced.

Collaborative robots based on multi-joints, due to their high-precision core components and anthropomorphic working methods, will enter the cooking, dessert making and other aspects - well, the chef can get off work early.

Eastern philosophy allows the two perspectives to not be separated from each other, but to seek more business opportunities and resonance.

3. Planning – from policy to implementation

China’s service robot industry’s “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” plan has gone through the stages from “policy” to implementation. The macro plan has been completed and the market structure has been initially determined. Therefore, starting from the "14th Five-Year Plan" in 2021, the policy has given three safe routes:

1. Expand the market: Encourage service robot companies to establish product experience centers, explore the establishment of new leasing service platforms, and develop new business models such as intelligent cloud services. This can quickly meet the rising consumption needs of Chinese consumers and promote the development of the smart home industry.

2. Domestic substitution: On December 24, 2021, Presidential Order No. 103 was issued, which mentioned that “the government should take the lead in purchasing domestically produced scientific and technological innovation products that are put on the market for the first time.” This means that local manufacturers producing to G special service robots will be the first to profit, and under the future trend of multi-scenario cooperation of service robots, the domestic substitution wave will gradually spread to the to B side.

3. Improve the industrial chain: Strengthen cooperation among service robot user companies, robot companies, complete machine and parts companies, and jointly carry out technical tests and verifications. Use various technical means such as induction control, voice control, and remote control to vigorously develop service robots.

At present, compared with industrial robots, service robots are still an emerging industry in the field of robots, accounting for a lower proportion. But what is certain is that service robots will serve all aspects of society in the future, which has a much broader prospect than the manufacturing industry served by industrial robots.

China is moving towards a dual cycle of domestic and international use, and is working hard to promote the domestic consumer market. This is undoubtedly a good environment for service robots with strong commodity attributes and practicality-oriented services.

Service robots are tools that serve humans with "intelligence" and are inseparable from AI technologies such as computer vision, positioning, and intelligent voice. Therefore, the prosperity of the service robot industry not only depends on market share and penetration rate, but also on whether the core technology can continue to make breakthroughs and whether it can quickly move from the laboratory to actual products.

The most successful image created by the movie "Super Marines" is the fat, soft and considerate "Baymax". If we follow the current definition of robots, Dabai should be: Robot Category - Service Robot Division - Professional Service Robot Category —Medical robot species.

Baymax stands out from the crowd of robots with explosive combat capabilities in the film, and even overshadows the protagonist. The reason is that he has largely changed people's stereotypes of "robots" - sensitive yet mechanical, intelligent yet ruthless.

Indeed, people are more willing to place their emotions on service robots than cold industrial robots. Even now, service robots are far from being as intelligent as in science fiction movies, and some scenarios have become more and more common.

People began to talk to the reception robots in hotels, banks, and shopping malls intentionally or unintentionally, and even "teased" the robot ladies; in daily home life, from children to the elderly, they have become accustomed to shouting "Tmall Elf" or "Tmall Elf" from time to time. "Xiaodu Xiaodu" wakes up the smart speaker - also called a social robot - or has one or two meaningful or meaningless conversations, or asks for some help.

Some people may regard this as a morbid behavior, but look at it from another angle: everyone is afraid of loneliness. This kind of companionship anytime and anywhere comes from "repulsive" technology, but it may not be just a rational need.