China produced 1.5 million service robots in two months – 15 times more than industrial ones

The rapid development of the Chinese industry for the production of various types of household robots can be judged at least by the range of robotic vacuum cleaners, but such rates of expansion are typical for Chinese robotics in general. Official statistics show that in the first two months of this year, one and a half million service robots were produced in China – 35.7% more than a year earlier.

Image Source: UBTech Robotics

For comparison, as noted by the South China Morning Post, only 91,088 industrial robots were produced during the same period this year, and the growth in their production volumes was limited to 27% in annual comparison. In other words, service robots are produced in China more than fifteen times more than industrial ones. The service category includes robots used in medicine, logistics and the household sector.

According to Chinese official statistics, the country’s entire robotics industry accounted for 9.1% of added value growth in the digital product manufacturing sector over the period. The introduction of an official section on service robots in official government statistics highlights the importance of the industry for the national economy. Last year, the Chinese company Roborock became the world’s largest manufacturer of cleaning robots (16%), pushing the American iRobot (13.7%) into second place. The top five market leaders now include four Chinese manufacturers: Roborock, Ecovacs Robotics, Xiaomi and Dreame.

The importance of developing the robotics industry is recognized by the Chinese government at the highest level. Venture capitalists are well-versed in market trends, and so in the first two months of this year they invested a total of $276 million in the capital of 20 Chinese developers of humanoid robots, which is almost double the result last year, which involved only four developers.